Health and social profile of people with intellectual disabilities living in non‐intellectual disability long term care settings

Background: To describe the population of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) living in non‐ID long term care settings.
Method: 70 non‐ID care settings in the UK participated in the study, supporting 1838 people. Within this population, 162 people (8.8%) were reported to have ID. Demographic and health data on those people with ID were obtained.
Results: These findings are based only on initial analysis of data. Almost one half of the sample had lived in another care setting prior to their current place of residence. Of those, the majority had moved there from an ID setting. 55% had no recent contact with ID services and this rate was negatively related to length of stay. The average length of stay in their current setting was 5.5 years. Data will be reported on health status and future perceived health status.
Conclusion: (Tentative) there appears to be a drift from ID to non‐ID services in later life. The age structure of this latter population of people with ID is considerably older that of those living in ID settings. Given this and the reported health profile of this population, non‐ID settings are also significant in the provision of end of life care to this population. These factors highlight the need for more research within this sector of care.