Is the money following the clients with learning disabilities?

Abstract

For the past decade patients with learning disabilities living in long stay mental handicap hospitals have been resettled in the community. Local authorities have also taken on the care of new patients who would once have been long stay residents. The imperfect data that are available suggest that in England about half the residents in mental handicap hospitals in 1981 are now the responsibility of local authorities; the figures for Wales and Northern Ireland are 38% and 33%. Data on revenue suggest that the savings to the health service are much less--perhaps 9% in Northern Ireland and 3.6% in England, although there have also been capital gains through the sale of hospitals. Existing methods of transferring money from health to local authorities--joint finance and "dowries" for individual patients--do not seem adequately to have compensated local authorities. Moreover, as patients still to be transferred are more severely disabled local authorities will require larger sums--about 26 000 pounds per patient per year plus 39 200 pounds in capital. If the government chooses not to transfer these resources from health authorities it will be switching funds away from learning disabled people to other care groups.