Authorities told to take responsibility for helping people with learning difficulties

Scottish health boards and councils must accept responsibility
for improving the lives of people with learning difficulties,
according to the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability,
writes Shona Main.

Speaking at a Learning Disability Today Scotland conference,
SCLD director Lisa Curtice said that despite greater
expectations since the Scottish executive’s review of
learning difficulty services in 2000, a lot of people with learning
difficulties and their carers had still not seen any
improvements.

“For them to see a change, we need to see local agencies,
like health boards and local authorities, taking corporate
responsibility for improving the lives of people with learning
disabilities,” Curtice told Community Care.

She said: “There needs to be greater awareness amongst all
service providers of the needs of people with learning
disabilities, and the types of services available to them need to
be widened.”

Commenting on the impetus provided by the 2000 review, ‘The Same
As You’, Curtice told the Community Care-supported event:
“People now expect things to happen. There are Same As You
groups implementing policy locally and families getting involved in
how money is being spent. Yet we know that a lot of people still
haven’t seen change.”