Meetings of the Local Implementation Group (LIG)
New Forest Mencap hosts the monthly Yellow LIG meetings for our area (see map). Participants are people with a learning disability, private care providers, members of Hampshire Adult Services teams, parents, and invited professionals who update us on matters affecting the learning disabled community.
We have had interesting contributions from the South West Health Trust telling us about their work with Southampton Mencap and Southampton General Hospital in promoting Royal Mencap’s Treat Me Well campaign. The Trust aims to improve signage and make menus easier for patients to make selections; it aims to install a Changing Places toilet and has taken into account problems with long waits and will provide a quiet area for those who are disturbed by bustling environments. Voyage Care, a regular LIG participant recommended the Red Bag scheme whereby patients are sent to hospital with, essentially, a ‘grab’ bag containing personalised notes about likes and dislikes and potential behaviours (fear of needles etc), and notes about medication as well as the medication itself if appropriate. The bag should move with the patient as they travel round the hospital so all those attending that person is aware of all issues. The Trust’s representative has made a note to look into the scheme.
The South West Health Trust is also monitoring GP surgeries to ensure that everyone, including the parent carer, is receiving a properly conducted Annual Health Check. The checks should not be rushed, should be conducted by the GP and typically should last for about 40 minutes. The patient should come away with a report. Each GP surgery is awarded a traffic light and our area scores very well for good (green) lights. Each visit is worth £150 (at last count) to the surgery so it is vital that the Trust knows the visit is being conducted properly.
Members of the Accommodation team from Hampshire County Council have also given us briefings about the likelihood of people leaving home and entering supported living. This is a fraught issue with long waits that currently don’t take into account the age of the parents. New Forest Mencap will be attempting to highlight this issue further and press for the Council to acknowledge a family’s needs when parents reach retirement age if not sooner.
We are not aware of a mechanism that alerts the Council to the growing elderly parent population and the need to prepare to accommodate offspring who themselves are living longer. We believe
and we have said, that there should be at least a 5 year forward building plan to take this into account, for which parental agesneed to be captured. Now, this may contravene data protection, but we feel that if we can make a start by parents voluntarily providing details of their age and the age of their son or daughter, a better picture could be formed of what the requirement is going to be.
The Council is also trying to promote private rental and supported living accommodation over having people in care homes. The Fernmount site in New Milton (all flats accounted for) which we have previously highlighted is one such example. The landlord is a private landlord with whom a tenancy agreement is taken out but the Council procurers the onsite care provision. Currently many previous care homes are de-registering and switching to this supported living model.
These are just two of the subjects on the agenda and of course the financial constraints on local government spending is having a great impact on everything we talk about.