Recording intellectual disability . . . and other stories

Patients with intellectual disability

People with intellectual disability need extra care when they’re admitted to hospital. A study from England using linked clinical datasets raises suspicions that they aren’t getting it. Among2500 admissions of people with intellectual disability, fewer than 3% had the condition accurately notedin their hospital records. Even when the criteria were relaxed to include the broader label of learning difficulty, only a quarter had the condition recorded (PLoS Med doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1004117).