Ordinary and unique lives for adults with a learning disability and /or autism: a six steps approach

Over the last 20 years, the NHS and councils have seen several policy and legislative changes aimed at supporting and improving the lives of people with a learning disability and/or autism through the promotion of rights, empowerment, prevention, choice and control and independence. But, despite these initiatives, incidents of abuse and ill-treatment in residential settings and examples of health inequalities for people with a learning disability and/or autism remain. We also know that gaps in both universal and early help provision can exacerbate the need for more costly crisis or specialist provision for a person who could have benefitted from more timely and proportional behavioural support.

We strongly believe that now is the right time to build on the foundation of health and social care policy and legislation from across the UK through outcome focused ‘integrated’ service design, commissioning and performance management approaches. Therefore, this paper offers a whole system model of care – ordinary and unique lives - as the evidence-based framework to describe the support and services needed to promote good outcomes for adults with a learning disability and/or autism. Applying our proven ‘six steps’ performance management approach to this whole system model will help stakeholders across health and social care to monitor and manage the performance of local public services.

The service examples and suggested objectives and performance indicators in this paper provide an informative and helpful stimulus for commissioners to explore their current arrangements and to describe the future direction and aspirations for the ordinary and unique lives for adults with a learning disability and/or autism in their communities