What is going on in this house?

What a spiteful post. I worked in disability outreach and saw things from the other end of he scale. Families who lived with adult disabled children with severe autism or mental health conditions which made them prone to violent meltdowns.

I’ve seen parents - often with younger children at home - having to set up safe rooms in their own homes, essentially barricading themselves in to protect themselves from the violence involved. Often the adult child is much bigger and stronger than their parents and I’ve seen families living in what sometimes resembles a war zone because of repeated damage, and parents/family members repeatedly assaulted.

These families are often essentially left to get on with things because there is little or no support available in their area - services are patchy across the country and non existent in some areas.

Placements are few and far between for these people because they cannot be housed safely in residential settings and there aren’t nearly enough secure settings for care, so they end up in these circumstances - many also end up in inappropriate care settings where they are a danger to themselves and others, often with serious consequences.

I’m not suggesting that this is the case here, but you clearly have no idea of how some people have to live, or of the nature of these conditions and what they mean for individual care settings. Where would you prefer the resources go, when the current infrastructure is creaking ?

Your supposition that a person who requires this level of care is someone unable to have a meaningful life or be able to have any understanding of a meaningful life is both wildly inaccurate and offensive.

wow.

just wow.

Putting a person, an actual human being who is unwell in solitary confinement. Ah well, might as well put them on death row eh? Not like they have feelings and are deserving of a life.

So what do you suggest they do with this man? put him in a residential care home where he may attack and seriously hurt other residents? If your family member was in residential care and other resident killed them, how would you feel about that?

The problem with the families who want their mentally unwell or mentally disabled relative to live the most free life they can, is that they don't want to be the ones caring for them 24/7 while they do it.

Because they already know how exhausting and demoralising and risky and dangerous and basically impossible it is to enable them to have that. But they want the rest of us to pay for round the clock care for other people to provide the care that they themselves don't want to do provide because it's too much like hard work and they are tired of being head butted or having their house smashed up daily.

So I'm sorry but unless you are prepared to do it yourself then you can't always demand and dictate the level of 'care' and 'freedom' and independence' or 'autonomy' or 'inclusion' or whatever you want to call it, that you'd like that relative to have.

Look at the situation recently of the little boy thrown into the crocodile enclosure. That mentally disabled man had two full time carers with him and this still happened. And we've been told that his limited capacity to understand what he did means he won't face any charges for it. His right to 'enjoyment' and 'inclusion' meant other people were put needlessly at risk and it almost cost that poor child his life.

Perhaps, after the inevitable enquiry about what went wrong (apart from the bleeding obvious) some genius will argue that 'lessons have been learnt' and from now on, the answer to this is that people like him should have six carers, not two, when they are taken out for the day among the general public. Any measures, at absolutely any cost, just so long as they aren't 'locked up in an institution like Victorian times'.

Didn't they shut pretty much all the secure hospitals though, remember "care in the community" from the dear departed Mrs Thatcher? They used the excuse that it was better for people to be cared for in their own communities and homes to shut down residential psychiatric units etc.

There are loads of houses like this for autistic / disabled / troubled children too. Sometimes with up to 6 carers per child. Privately run / outsourced and costing local authorities millions and millions per child every year. Private businesses making crazy profit off it.

Yes that made me laugh as well, the OP is crossing boundaries!!!!

Very good.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't think the situation of OP's neighbour is very common. His problems must be unusually severe.

And I'm not sure what you want society to do with a person who has such needs. Take him out the back and shoot him?

We don't put people in institutions for life anymore. I'm proud to live in such a humane country.

Im just explaining to you why these arrangements are made and the limitations of the formal settings for different conditions

There is a lot and I mean a LOT of argument between health and Local Authorities about who picks up the tab for this or that person. No one wants to put these packages together, health will say its not a health problem, social care will say it is a health problem. Both will say its the family's problem. Criminal justice will say its a health or social care problem. Society will say its a criminal justice problem. Police have opted out a long time ago and will say 'right time, right service, dont call us'

Who's problem is it?

Well, of course you're interested, OP! And I bet those who've been snide and pious to you on this thread would be just the same. Try to ignore the people who are trying to rile you - they are literally on every thread.

The PP who said that talking about this on an anonymous chat site with an anonymous username, giving precisely zero identifying information "crosses some boundaries" - LMAO! 😂😂😂 Well, by that logic, none of the hundreds of thousands of threads on here discussing situations with family, friends, and partners should be allowed, as they all contain much more identifying information than this! Perhaps MN should be shut down if anonymous people can't discuss anonymous neighbours on an anonymous website! 😂😂😂 Crosses some boundaries - oh, my sides!

This is why relatives can't be involved in these kinds of decisions. Of course we all want the best that's possibly available for our relatives, whether that's care or some ultra expensive drug or treatment.

But, "we" can't pay for it all, so difficult decisions have to be made. My neighbour went to the US, after being told her cancer was terminal, for treatment that wasn't available on the NHS. 20 years on she's just run a marathon. The NHS would have let her die because of cost, those kinds of decisions happen daily.

Yes I am aware that ASD is not a MH condition. I don't think that just because it falls between the cracks in terms of not being a MH illness as such and also not being a health condition that can be cured or improved, and also not always intersecting with intellectual impairment or LDs either, that there should not be a more efficient and cost effective way of dealing with those autistic people who are not safe to live independently, and a constant danger to others.

Just because technically, hospital isn't the appropriate setting, doesn't mean this sort of setting is appropriate. It's not. And it's not remotely affordable.

Wow so if one of your children, close relatives were in an accident/attacked and ended up with an acquired brain injury you would be happy for them to just be locked away due to cost?

i have commissioned high cost packages for people who cant breathe unaided with no chance of improvement but can go home with their loved ones and have care at home, do you also suggest they should be locked away somewhere also

I dont disagree. Im just telling you what the law is now.

And its not just about the law, society championed for this sort of individualism, inclusion, 'support' and while that is empowering to some people with much much lower need, it results in situations like this or results in situations where people are left without support and monitoring which is to their detriment and society's detriment as well.

People are horrified by institutionalisation of people, you wouldnt want that for your relative, you would want them to live the most free life they could, the least restrictions as the law sets out.

It is interesting that this kind of care is a realistic prospect for some. I understand "we" don't want people in institutions long term and of course if it was me or a loved one that's what I'd fight for, but difficult decisions have to be made across all areas of NHS care, based on cost. This does seem excessive.

You need to be sectionable to be detained in a psychiatric hospital, you need to have a treatable MH condition. Hospitals are not just holding placements.

ASD/PD are not treatable MH conditions, even if someone has PD and can have some therapeutic input for it, its not a detainable condition. ASD is not a MH condition at all.

Fucking hell there's some annoying sanctimonious people on this thread. It's completely normal, understandable and indeed desirable behaviour to be alert to one's surroundings. I suppose these people who say you should carry on as if there is 'nothing to see here' go round in some kind of rainbow bubble where the world is fully of lovely happy people living side by side in harmony, all the while projecting their own shit onto anyone who dares to be alert to what goes on in their own neighbourhood and community.

Look on the council website. There should be pp for extension and change of use. I'd want to know what was going on in my neighborhood. Perfectly reasonable to ask.

This

Then the law should be changed.

Hospitals, secure facilities, large scale residential care homes, it's all semantics. I don't care what you want to call them and what the technicalities and differences between each are. People whose conditions are not treatable and for whom there is no real chance of cure or improvement and whose quality of life and often their understanding of, and ability to enjoy their surroundings and interactions are vastly limited anyway, should not be having this sort of money spent on them just to keep them 'safe.' If keeping them safe is the main objective there are far cheaper ways than this to do it. It's an extremely poor and misguided use of NHS resources.

One assumes this is a joke!!

I was an independent visitor for a teen who upon leaving care, was homeless before having a house with two carers with her at all times. It broke my heart as she was a bright, capable girl who'd been given endless opportunities but the early childhood damage was too much.

She'd been on drugs and was volatile, sometimes partook in risk-taking behaviours and could be violent. She would often take overdoses not enough to kill her but enough to be taken to hospital.

I wasn't privy to the full story as she was (by now) an adult with capacity, and there was no getting the truth out of her, but putting two and two together she was entitled to live independently somewhat but not alone. It is not unlikely that it is something like that.

The law doesnt allow for solitary confinement unless under the justice system

Hospitals are for treating people with treatable conditions.

Neither of your suggestions would accommodate the types of people many of us have been talking about on here.

Well that is a contradiction in terms, isn't it? Most cost effective but least restrictive.... The minute you started considering what is 'least' restrictive then all cost considerations will go out of the window, won't they? Your choice is then between whichever option is merely eye wateringly expensive, rather than horrifically and stratospherically eye wateringly expensive.

I'd suggest in many of these cases, what is 'least restrictive' for the 'client' makes fuck all real difference to them anyway and only serves to make the rest of us feel better about how kind and enlightened we have become in our treatment of people with complex MH issues, autism or intellectual disabilities etc. There has to be some sensible middle ground here, surely? We don't have to resort to tying mentally disabled people to beds like it's communist era Romania, but come on now. There have to be limits.

Ahh ok x I’d be curious too @Neighbourmystery but I freely admit I’m the nosiest person I know 😂
Of course you can’t ask the carers and despite what so many on here think, I actually read your op and subsequent posts and know you never had any intention of doing so!
I think you’ve unfairly been given a hard time for chatting and wondering about it here, but that’s MN for you!!
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