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Amongst other actions the Care Act 2014 emphasised the duties of local authorities (LA) to assess the needs of carers, as well as those they care for and to meet all eligible needs for support. This paper aims to report the findings of a study which explored the experiences of older carers of people with learning disabilities as they navigated LA assessment processes and personnel.

Using an explorative design, 21 older carers were interviewed about their experiences. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analysed.

Three main themes were identified, namely, needs assessments as ambitions, not outcomes; the effects of funding-cuts projected onto carers; and challenges with social care personnel.

The study findings attracted a high level of engagement with public awareness and mainstream news and social media. The LA also immediately responded with interventions to address some of the findings, including carer “drop-in” sessions. They are also adapting their carer’s needs assessment processes as a result of the study. It is hoped that the issues raised will be of interest to other social care providers and practitioners.

Because people with learning disabilities (LD) are living longer, their family carers are likely to continue their caring role for longer. This study aims to explore the experiences of older carers of people with LD.

In total, 16 interviews with older carers were carried out and analysed qualitatively.

Three main themes emerged from the data: “transition to retirement is a misnomer”; “impact of caring role”; and “fears for the future”.

Previous studies have not focussed on the specific experiences of “older” carers and their situation risks going unnoticed. Their experiences should be acknowledged by services and society and meaningful support provided.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on the article by Rachel Forrester-Jones on the experiences of older carers of people with learning disabilities.

The commentary reflects on the themes identified in the original article, comparing its findings to the lived experiences of those taking part in older carers’ projects in Oxfordshire, England.

Similar broad themes were identified in both samples. Given these findings, the extent to which matters have changed, since the Valuing People work on older carers is considered.

The paper discusses policy and practice implications to improve the quality of life of older carers and their families and explores how the voice of older carers can be strengthened to enable them to shape practice and policy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Older carers of people with learning disabilities: their experiences with local authority assessment processes and personnel” written by Rachel Forrester-Jones.

This commentary considers the experiences of older carers in the context of research, legislative and policy changes over the past 30+ years.

The needs of older carers of adults with learning disabilities are well recognised within the (limited) literature. Less attention has been given to practical strategies to identify and support such carers or to their broader family context.

This commentary highlights that assessors carrying out carers’ needs assessments should consider whether adults with learning disabilities are providing care to their older relative. The recognition of possible mutual or reciprocal care needs to be acknowledged and appropriate support offered.

This paper reports on the key findings of a study into the outcomes and costs of community care for a large cohort of people with learning disabilities, supported in 12 study sites across England, who left various long‐stay hospital 12 years ago as part of a centrally monitored and evaluated government policy initiative on deinstitutionalisation. It represents the last follow‐up of a raft of linked longitudinal evaluations, conducted at four time points over a twelve‐year period. The paper identifies the findings from the last follow‐up and interprets and presents them as summary observations and trends in relation to the findings in learning disability, briefly reviewing them in relation to wider evidence on deinstitutionalisation and community care in England.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reflective journals kept by 62 students researching and interviewing people with learning disabilities. The aim was to explore the content and discover any themes that were generated throughout the journals as a result of the pre-, during- and post-interview process.

The method used to analyse the journals was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith and Osborn, 2008).

The results showed that there was a shift from negative to positive reflections as the frequency of contact with people with learning disabilities increased and that the majority of students reported a change in attitude towards this group of individuals after experiencing direct contact (two to three meetings over a period of two months).

Implications of the findings are for government policies, promoting social inclusion through education, to offer the opportunity for direct contact with people with learning disabilities, (in keeping with Allport's, 1954 Contact Theory) at an earlier stage in education, fostering an environment for earlier attitude change and increased social inclusion.

Changing society's attitude through our education system may decrease marginalisation by the public as well as discriminatory and abusive behaviour found in some social and community care settings.

This piece of research may add value to social, government and educational policies. Finding an evidence base to continue to build policies for decreasing marginalisation and promoting social inclusion for people with learning disabilities.