BETTER OUTCOMES FOR PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES – TRANSFORMING CARE (BOLDTC)

VIDEO-CONFERENCING SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

People with learning disabilities often have problems sustaining contact with their families and accessing health and other services when they need them. This project provided video-conferencing facilities that people with learning disabilities and their carers could use to ease these communication problems. The technology was deployed across five locations in England and the Institute played an action research and evaluation role to support the project in its search for the best way to exploit this technology for the benefit of people with learning disabilities. Early results suggest a major benefit is that the technology can be a significant benefit to families in maintaining contact with people with learning disabilities but that organisational issues in revising service procedures may hamper adoption of the technology within the health services. The project worked in an iterative way to support the learning of all parties about the value of this technology and how to overcome the organisational problems in its adoption.