Stella Smith’s son Andrew has needed considerable ongoing support since the age of four when he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition. Ever since then, one of the greatest challenges for Stella and her family has been getting the different services involved in his care to work together. With thanks to our friends at the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB).

Read more on this here.

The Financial Conduct Authority has worked with the National Autistic Society to publish a special banking guide for autistic consumers.

Access the guide here.

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.

Ian Trenholm has been appointed as CQC’s new Chief Executive and will take over the role from Sir David Behan when he leaves in July.

Find out more here.

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.