Dying Matters: A Workbook on caring for people with learning disabilities who are terminally ill (***New Review)

DYING MATTERS: A WORKBOOK ON CARING FOR PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES WHO ARE TERMINALLY ILL

Hilary Brown, Sophie Burns and Margaret Flynn, Mental Health Foundation 
ISBN 1903645565, £25

STAR RATING: 4/5

An excellent workbook that sets out to help professionals who work with people with learning difficulties through the difficult and often emotional painful work of supporting someone who is dying, writes David O’Driscoll. 

The eight sections of the workbook are designed to help take staff through the various stages from first noticing that someone is ill, to being admitted to hospital, including a strong section on consent to treatment, through to dying and the grieving process. 

I felt that its strength was in how the authors brought the staff relationship with the service users to the centre of the workbook with some moving case studies. But I was surprised that there was no mention of the National Network of Palliative Care for People with Learning Disabilities which has been at the forefront of challenging the disadvantages people with learning difficulties face in receiving health care, and one which this book acknowledges.

David O’Driscoll is assistant director, Respond, which works therapeutically with people with learning difficulties