Councils cannot cap personal budgets under Care Act, Ombudsman warns

Councils cannot set maximum budget levels when calculating the cost of people’s care, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said.

The Ombudsman has issued the advice after an investigation found Wiltshire Council had a policy of placing people into bands, and paying in line with those banding levels, regardless of need. This is contrary to the Care Act.

Read more here.

The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Annual Report 2017

The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) published a report on Friday 4th May

The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) programme was established to support local areas to review the deaths of people with learning disabilities, identify learning from those deaths, and take forward the learning into service improvement initiatives.  It is being implemented at the time of considerable spotlight on the deaths of patients in the NHS, and the introduction of the national Learning from Deaths framework in England in 2017. The programme is led by the University of Bristol and commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of NHS England.

Key information about the people with learning disabilities whose deaths were notified to the LeDeR programme includes:

  • Just over half (57%) of the deaths were of males
  • Most people (96%) were single
  • Most people (93%) were of White ethnic
    background
  • Just over a quarter (27%) had mild learning disabilities; 33% had moderate learning disabilities; 29% severe learning disabilities; and
    11% profound or multiple learning disabilities.
  • Approximately one in ten (9%) usually lived alone
  • Approximately one in ten (9%) had been in an out-of-area placement

The report (and easy read version) can be accessed here.