Age or disability? Age-based disparities in service provision for older people with intellectual disabilities in Great Britain

This article concentrates on the role of service providers in prescribing artificial limits to the potential of older people with intellectual disabilities. It is argued that the key factor in this social creation of dependency is the age discriminatory attitudes held by some service providers and which distinguish between the different British service cultures in provision for older people and those for people with an intellectual disability. Thus the behaviour of care staff and the assumptions implicit in social policies can result in practices which reinforce dependency rather than empowerment. Our conclusions are based on two research projects conducted in the North West Region of Britain. The first was a study of the resettlement from three large long-stay hospitals of both older and younger people with intellectual disabilities. The second consisted of a follow-up study, three years later, of some of those resettled. Comparisons of the data between the two periods show considerable improvement in competencies among older people and, where there had been deterioration, this was less than among the younger age group. Nonetheless, care staff had lower expectations of older people and consequently offered them fewer opportunities than younger people.