§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales how it is planned that emergency and respite care, previously provided at long-stay hospitals for those with learning difficulties and seriously challenging behavioural problems, is to be made available in each county in Wales following the closure of such hospitals; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RichardsLocal and health authorities are responsible for planning and delivering these services.
Welsh Office circular 7/95, "Mental Handicap Strategy: Planning Alternative Care and Support for Individuals Living Unnecessarily and Inappropriately in Long Stay Mental Handicap Hospitals", stresses the need for 185W authorities to consider how services currently provided on hospital sites will be provided in future years as resources are withdrawn from hospitals. We have made it clear that no long stay hospitals will close until appropriate arrangements for alternative care and support are in place.
§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales, if he will make it his policy that each individual with learning or behavioural difficulties, who has been a long-term resident at a long stay hospital in Wales, will have an individual assessment made of his or her personal, social and economic needs, by an appropriate multi-disciplinary team prior to being re-integrated into the community and that the individual, or an advocate on behalf of that individual, will have an opportunity to comment upon and agree to that plan before it is implemented.
§ Mr. RichardsIt has always been the policy, under the Welsh mental handicap strategy, that individuals' needs should be assessed by a multi-disciplinary team. This is reinforced by the requirement to carry out assessments under section 47 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.
Full involvement of the individual concerned has always been a key element of these assessments. This is reinforced in Welsh Office circular 7/95 "Mental Handicap Strategy: Planning Alternative Care and Support for Individuals Living Unnecessarily and Inappropriately in Long Stay Mental Handicap Hospitals", which also urges authorities to consider how to resolve disagreements about plans for alternative care where these differ significantly from the wishes and preferences of individuals and their families.