What is going on in this house?

[Neighbourmystery]

Right, this is going to sound nosy but here goes...
A house in a street I know was owned by an old lady with no family. When she died, her house stood empty for nearly a year then it started having work done. It's been bought by a health service far away from he town we live in (think I live in Liverpool and NHS Devon and Cornwall bought it) BTW these are not the real locations. So, they do lots of renovations, including putting a much higher fence up which has a key code entry they also put frosted film on every window. There's a new build extension on the side with coded keypads too. This is where 2 carers are. There are 4 carers altogether, 2 at a time and then a swap. There is one man who lives there . He is in his 30s , able bodied can move well etc I've seen him once or twice in the garden in a whole year. Another twice I saw a darkened van come to get him. He was only gone for an hour or so then back.
I cannot imagine the scenario this might be. I'm not curtain twitching and permanently watching but I am fascinated.

That's what they said./s

Yes, exactly that, but in some form of solitary confinement where he has access to carers but not actual physical access to other residents. Or very limited access to other residents in strictly controlled circumstances and small doses. So like when you see someone doing a prison visit via a protective screen, they could socialise to a degree, if capable or willing to do so, but not have the opportunity to physically attack other residents.

It's not very nice, I know, but it's just the most realistic and pragmatic option. People are saying 'where are these facilities? They don't exist.' Well neither do these very expensive, bespoke assisted living places until some committee decided to buy a house and convert it to one. These people are essentially being kept in solitary confinement (apart from access to their carers) anyway aren't they? That would appear to be the entire point of these houses, to accommodate certain very high needs, high risk individuals away from other residents in a shared facility. So we may as well drop the hand wringing and outrage at the idea of solitary confinement for unwell or mentally disabled people. Because that is basically what these outrageously expensive tailor-made solutions are designed to do.

Theres a house a bit like that in our community. The authority paid 1.8M for it, its a 4/5 bed. (We are in the south and thats the going rate!) Spent nearly 1m renovating, and now it sits empty for the past 18mths because it doesn’t meet some of the fire/safety regulations. It was going to be a type of children’s/teenagers home. Not sure what/if it can be made compliant but this is tax payers money they are throwing about!
I’d imagine they could have bought a similar property for buttons in different parts of the country, but then harder for family to visit I suppose. I expect similar with your house OP - its a cheaper place for the council to buy a suitable property for people that their responsible for?

Im a social worker, and I worked for a charity for the vulnerably housed for a time. We set something up like this. So we bought a few run down properties, did them up, then started off with 1 man who was homeless and we moved him in (there were strict criteria for this), once we could ensure there were no drugs, no alcohol, no anti-social behaviour, bills being paid etc then it became more permanent and we would put more people in. We had to ensure the residents wouldn't clash and negatively influence each other. It could be something like that - people just needing a leg up and support before they stabilise.

So after decades of being the absolute last in line for resources, you’re now suggesting that those with mental health/cognitive difficulties should be even less of a priority, simply because of the cost of addressing their needs ? Lock them away from the rest of society - hell, they’re so far gone they won’t even notice ? That appears to be what you’re saying. I’m wondering what kind of experience is informing your opinion, because you clearly haven’t the first clue about mental health.

It’s neither realistic, nor pragmatic, it’s cruel and it’s a backward step. You’re basically advocating for putting people in prison simply because they have difficult mental health conditions, and you’re making the massive assumption that they’re not cognisant enough to realise what’s happening to them, so that makes it OK.

So whose spending half a million for 1 person?

"Any measures, at absolutely any cost" - that is just not what happens. If you think LAs and ICBs are jumping up to give out expensive packages so that all people can live their best lives, you are seriously mistaken.

No one knows yet what went wrong with that crocodile case (just a matter of time before it was brought up). It may well have been unbelievably stupid planning, staffing and negligence that led to it, therefore it won't be a case of "let's give him 6 carers so he can visit crocodiles again" (how ridiculous). It may well reveal absolutely nothing about the care needs of the general population of people with high needs LD. It certainly won't be proof that we need to go back to mass institutionalisation. When a woman with rapid onset postpartum psychosis kills her baby, do we say all postpartum women need locking up for a year just in case?

For all we know the OP's neighbour needs 2:1 care because he is a danger to himself and absolutely no one else, and has extensive personal care needs. I know several children like that.

You’ve hit the nail on the head. No one wants to take responsibility. The attitude on here seems to be that care in the community doesn’t work, so let’s step back sixty years and start locking people away again, simply for being mentally unwell.

@ForeverNowWithin

So say a 15yr old fell off their bike. Wasn’t wearing their helmet. Got a brain injury. Parents tried to care for them for a few years but their other dc were at risk due to the change in them since their injury. Now requires 2:1 care, regularly inappropriate and difficult to look after. Prior to the accident was just a normal kid. If this was your child you honestly think they should just be locked up? You would be ok with that? Providers and carers work hard to ensure they still have a fulfilling life as much as possible but you would be ok with your child not getting that?

Fuck me, some of the responses on this thread are disgusting.

OP I don’t blame you for being curious, lots of us would be.

Yes agree with this. In my ICB which serves a huge area of probably 1 million plus. We have no more than 10 high cost cases and most of them are 3:1 max and thats only waking hours.

People really need to educate themselves on how funding works with NHS, LA etc and how it works with providers before commenting on threads like this and offering disgusting and ignorant views.

I think sadly people look at those with severe learning disabilities (and the like) as if they're not real people. I think on some level they don't really believe it could happen to families like theirs.

They don't understand that the these people are our cherished children, who we held close as babies, and nursed through sickness, and got ready for school, and celebrated all their achievements (whatever they may be). They're real people, with souls and personalities and loved ones and human rights. They're not this homogenous, intrinsically dangerous, not-fully-human "other" kind of being.

Yup, my experience.

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 stillhappened. 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.

We haven’t been ‘told’ any such thing. The case is still ongoing, and it’s more than likely that the incident actually happened because the man was in an inappropriate and insecure care setting, and whoever was responsible for risk assessment did a piss poor job.

The outcome will be that he will likely end up in a secure facility and won’t see the light of day again - he and that poor child will pay the price for the failures of those responsible for his safety and that of those around him. Or are you now advocating that we should press criminal charges against people who have no capacity to understand their actions, and have been so badly let down by those charged with their safety ?

But OP mentions a health authority owning it. Wouldn't it be the probation service or a private firm like G4S owning or operating that type facility?

So what to do with people who won’t take their meds and stab 3 people going about their business or someone who throws a little boy on his hols over a balcony or someone who thinks chucking a toddler into a crocodile pit - surely we deserve as a society protecting not dodging bullets every day

Yes - people who can’t see beyond the end of their nose as my mum used to say.

It can happen to anyone on anyday.

My dad had the same attitude as some of these posters until his best mate got ill and needs carers 4 times a day. Suddenly my dad is disgusted how little carers get paid, how hard it has been for his mate to access help and support. So many people think it will never happen to them or their loved ones and I hope to god it doesn’t- but if it does they are in for a rude awakening.

You do realise the reason they have made the news is because it is so unusual? Many people need care because they are more of a risk to themselves than anyone else. Have you ever worked in this industry or had any family members needing 24hr support?

So a two tier system then ? If you have the resources you can enjoy your mental health condition, if not you’re abandoned to the system and locked up ?

You have not read any of the posters telling you how this care is likely funded or that these prison type facilities you advocate for don't exist in the UK. Do you propose the NHS/LA should start building/funding/staffing these as this would be millions spent, making care packages small in comparison.
It is clear from your posts you have never had relatives that have needed bespoke care how lucky for you!

Personally I now think you are on a wind up to rile other posters on this thread but if not, well shame on you

Of course they haven’t. It was only a matter of time before these extreme examples were thrown up to support a narrative that doesn’t hold water. No system is infallible and these things do happen occasionally. It isn’t a reason to start locking people up wholesale ‘just in case’. The tendency on these threads is to go straight to blaming the disabled person themselves, as was evidenced by the howls of indignation that the man involved in the crocodile incident wouldn’t face criminal charges - no understanding at all that the failure here wasn’t his own, it was entirely on the part of those charged with keeping him, and those around him, safe.

You put in the appropriate measures that those individuals need, according to their personal level of risk and their histories. You can use sections, and DoLS etc as appropriate. You certainly don't ignore when a person with a history of violence tells you that they have a detailed plan to throw someone off a building and then give them unsupervised leave, or any of the other failings listed in the two of those cases we know about.

Some people can't seem to see that these high profile cases reveal serious professional and system mistakes, rather than "all people with high needs mental disabilities are so potentially dangerous they need locking up preventatively". If that's the way we should be thinking, maybe we should just lock up all men to be honest.

Agree. And l actually don’t think this is a wind up. It does seem that those who come to these threads to be vocal about the care/treatment of disabled people tend to be those with no experience of disability or caring themselves.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.