Twelve Years On: The Long‐term Outcomes and Costs of Deinstitutionalisation and Community Care for People with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This paper reports on the key findings of a study into the outcomes and costs of community care for a large cohort of people with learning disabilities, supported in 12 study sites across England, who left various long‐stay hospital 12 years ago as part of a centrally monitored and evaluated government policy initiative on deinstitutionalisation. It represents the last follow‐up of a raft of linked longitudinal evaluations, conducted at four time points over a twelve‐year period. The paper identifies the findings from the last follow‐up and interprets and presents them as summary observations and trends in relation to the findings in learning disability, briefly reviewing them in relation to wider evidence on deinstitutionalisation and community care in England.