Service Detail

The Behavioural and Developmental Psychiatry Clinical Academic Group, is committed to meeting the mental health care needs of people with a learning disability.



1. Service Description
The provision of Mental Health Learning Disability (MHLD) is an essential part of services provided by SLAM. MHLD teams are largely community based and support mainstream inpatient and community mental health services and social care teams to ensure the best clinical outcomes for adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems by bringing together specialist skills in psychiatry, psychology and nursing. Working within the agreed service level agreements the teams provide:

The Mental Health in Learning Disability Service aims to provide evidence-based services to people with learning disabilities and additional health needs who are registered with General Practitioners affiliated to the Lambeth, Lewisham Croydon and Southwark Clinical Commissioning Groups.

The Estia Centre is an education & training and research and development team that works alongside MHLD to support its functions.

Services encapsulated under Mental Health of Learning Disabilities (MHLD) are those that respond to aspects of a person which are affected when their mental wellbeing has deteriorated into:

• Mental illness
• Psychological disorders (same as mainstream psychological services)
• Significant challenging behaviour

The trust provides specialist multidisciplinary mental health services to adults with learning disabilities who present with these difficulties and whose needs cannot be adequately met by Adult Mental Health Services (with support from MHLD). These services are delivered via partnerships with Guys & St Thomas' NHS Trust, Social Services and the four CCGs, and other agencies to enable people to remain in their local communities.

2. Purpose
The B&D CAG aims to ensure that high quality evidence based care is available and accessible to people with a learning disability that have mental health problems and that best possible clinical outcomes are available. We aim to develop and provide a specialist service in line with the draft service model for commissioners of health and social care services 'Supporting people with a learning disability and / or autism who have a mental health condition or display behaviour that challenges' July 2015

Service focus:

• To work with those with the most complex needs who need a specialist MHLD service, and doing this in partnership with the wider MDT, the person and their support network
• Working with other services to make reasonable adjustments by sharing our expertise through consultation, training and education
• Focus on prevention and helping people to stay well in their local community
• Being responsive at times of crisis

3. Responsibilities
Within the wider trust services, the provision of mental health care for people with a learning disability who have a mental illness is a responsibility of all professionals, not the sole responsibility of specialist MHLD teams (Greenlight Toolkit GLTK).

• Service Directors
• Operational Leads
• Professional Groups
• Clinical Teams