Report: Coming Home Implementation – Working Group on Complex Care and Delayed Discharge
Scotland is committed to meeting its Human Rights obligations for people with learning disabilities, which are outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
This commitment has been set out in the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework and as proposed in legislation through the Human Rights Bill.
Scotland must provide the best possible services for people with a learning disability to enable them to lead high quality lives within their family and/or their community where they experience personalised support consistent with a Human Rights Based approach.
The current situation must change. It is unacceptable that people are spending large portions of their lives in hospitals or other settings if they are medically fit for discharge. ‘Care in the Community’ as first mandated in The Same as You (Scottish Executive, 2000) has still not been universally realised and we are failing those who are still delayed in hospital or in inappropriate out-of-area placements through the lack of provision of proactively-planned quality care and housing in community.
All people with complex care needs must receive excellent continuity of care. Everybody with a learning disability and complex care need who can should be able to live in their own home, supported by specialist staff.
Where there is a genuine therapeutic reason for individuals to stay in hospital they should receive appropriate specialist support in the short term,
with a clear plan in place for them to transition out of hospital and back into their community. A nowhere else to go but hospital scenario will be extinguished.
