Adults with learning disabilities slam consultations over day centre cuts

Nearly nine in ten individuals with a learning disability felt that they were inadequately consulted by their local authority about changes made to their day services, according to a survey by charity Mencap.

Some 64% of respondents said they had not been asked for their views at all, while 24% felt that their views were not listened to. Only 12% of respondents felt that their views about changes to their day service were listened to.

“This is despite the fact that local authorities have a legal duty to hold a public consultation, and to engage service users in this, if they are closing or significantly changing a day service,” Mencap said.

The charity’s report, Stuck at home: the impact of day service cuts on people with a learning disability, also found that in the past three years almost one in three (32%) local authorities had closed day services.

One in five of the councils (20%) did not say if they had provided replacement services.

The report also found that:

• More than half (57%) of people with a learning disability who were known to social services no longer received any day service provision whatsoever. This compared to 48% in 2009/10.
• Three in five (60%) local authorities had increased charges for day service attendance and related services, such as transport, on average by 70%.
• One in four respondents with a learning disability now spent less than one hour outside of their home everyday.
• More than one in three admitted to feeling “scared about the future” (37%), “isolated” (27%) or “lonely” (28%).
• Almost one in four (23%) family carers stated that their family was financially worse off due to the changes to day service provision.
• Almost three-quarters of carers (72%) feared that their child would not receive the support they needed to live a full and independent life.

Mark Goldring, Mencap's chief executive, said: “Our social care system is letting down this country’s most marginalised adults. It is deeply worrying that progress towards greater participation of disabled people in the community and mainstream society risks being undone by a failing system that has long been ignored and is now creaking under the pressure of increased demand and budget cuts.”

The report was compiled through online surveys of 280 people with a learning disability and family carers and 194 professionals who work with people with a learning disability. Mencap also received 151 responses from local authorities to a freedom of information request about day services.

A copy of the report can be downloaded here.

Mencap recently lent its backing to a legal challenge to the London Borough of Hillingdon’s plans to close three day care centres and replace them with a single centre.

Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which is representing the families of disabled adults in the legal action, claimed that the local authority’s consultations were unlawful, in that not enough information was provided to the public, families, campaigners and the council’s Cabinet.