Calls for more to be done to stop Scots with learning disabilities being admitted to locked wards

Senior political figures are calling for more to be done to stop Scots with learning disabilities being admitted to locked wards, sometimes miles from their homes and families.

Labour MSP Jackie Baillie spoke earlier this week at a reception she sponsored for Coming Home: Community for One, at the Scottish Parliament.

Baillie told fellow MSPs about the experiences of Louis Sainsbury, 38, who suffered brain injuries as a baby in hospital and who spent years detained in hospitals such as Dundee’s Carseview mental health unit and other institutions hundreds of miles from his family.

His story – and how he now lives permanently at Appletree, a first-of-its-kind home in Aberuthven – has previously been told by the Sunday Post.

The event brought together researchers, professionals, those with learning disabilities, as well as health and social care professionals to see what improvements can be made in social care.

Baillie, Labour’s spokesperson for Health, Social Care and Equalities said that the event was a welcome opportunity to come together to discuss how it was for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and autism are supported.

She said that we urgently need a whole sector approach to tackling this, looking at delayed discharge, the lack of community resources, working with social care services to ensure that they are properly funded and supported and it is an ambition shared by the First Minister, John Swinney.

She said: “There is a real lack of appropriate housing, a lack of care and community support that contributes to the current problem.

“It’s urgent that the Scottish Government does take further action, given that it’s been seven years since the first report was published.”

The Coming Home Implementation Report which was published in 2022, set out the need to significantly reduce, delay, discharge and inappropriate out-of-area placements for adults with learning disabilities and complex care needs by March 2024.

But these practices continue to take place across Scotland.

In 2018, there were 66 patients recognised as detained on the register and in June 2024, that number had risen to 1,515 people, the 474 classified as urgent.

Highlighting Louis’ case, Baillie said: “It’s an example of how a breakdown in care in the community can result in a person with learning disabilities being admitted into a locked ward, leading to decision-making abilities being taken out of the hands of the individual and their family.

“Some people are locked away miles from their relatives despite never having done anything wrong. Louie’s story gives us an invaluable insight into how we can and must get supported living right.”

© Andrew Cawley

Maree Todd, Minister for Social Care was also in attendance and thanked both Louis and his mother Kate for advocating for change.

She said that his story is an absolute testament that people with learning disabilities can live in their communities and have a future and said that despite some progress, there is more that needs to be done.

She said: “Over the coming weeks, I will be having a section for health and social care, having careful pieces around how to create the ability of coming home and I will give everyone in this room assurances of the theology that I’m putting on this. Of course, how we deliver and how we best deliver the change that’s needed will have to be co-produced with many people in this room.

“I will give you all a commitment to the importance of ensuring that the experiences of people with learning disabilities inform our work moving ahead.”

Louis’ mother Kate Sainsbury, who has tirelessly campaigned for years, said she was on a high from the event and said it was a real-turning event.

She said: “There were comments in the visitors’ books from MPs saying ‘thank you’ and that ‘they didn’t know about this’.

“I was so pleased with the numbers, I think there were about 50 people.

“Nobody can take away this problem. If we all collaborate and we all play the bits that we each play, then we can really make a difference for individuals. Social care urgently needs attention because the system is broken and what’s happening, it’s not as if the people who are detained are just frozen in time. They are actively being harmed while they’re detained.”