3 The Quilt of Excellence

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A photograph of who people sitting outside doing yoga poses.

Our research project showed that there were three key elements to providing excellent care to older people with learning disabilities and behaviours that challenge others. These are:

• Supporting people to live well: This includes things like having a good home, doing the things you love, and having positive relationships.
• Supporting people to age well: This includes excellent care for the physical, mental, social and emotional changes related to ageing; and planning ahead – for ageing, and for end of life.
• Creating a caring environment for all: this is about being in a nurturing environment where everyone (the person with learning disability, their family carers and practitioners) is cared for, and cared about. It is also an environment that empowers people to be involved in decisions about their life and protects their human rights.

We call these three key elements and the component parts (which can be many and varied), the quilt of excellence. This quilt is underpinned by a clear values base and strong, compassionate leadership.

Activity 4 What are the components of excellent care?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Watch this short animation about the Quilt of Excellence.

As you watch, think about the following questions:

1. What does living well mean to you?
2. What does ageing well mean to you?
3. Do you have experience of working in a nurturing and caring environment? If so, what made it feel this way? If the place(s) you have worked have not had a caring culture, what could have been better, and how?

Download this video clip.Video player: quilt_of_excellence_animation.mp4

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Transcript

NARRATOR

Our research showed that there are three key aspects involved when providing excellent care to older people with learning disabilities and their family carers. Each aspect is made up of its own unique elements. The result is really good support. We talked about how we could show what this support might look like in a visual way. Our team came up with the idea of a patchwork quilt. We call it the quilt of excellence. A patchwork quilt can be added to and changed over time, developing just like our lives do. A patchwork quilt also shows us how lots of smaller elements work together to make the whole. So our quilt of excellence for older people with learning disabilities and their family carers has three main parts, each with many different patches.

The first is about supporting people to live well as they get older. Through our research, we found that living well when people get older means having a good home, being able to get out and about in the fresh air, enjoying nature and being supported to do the things you really love. Enabling people to sustain relationships with their friends, family members, and support workers as they get older is also really important.

The second key element is supporting people to age well. This is about supporting people with the physical, mental, social and emotional changes related to ageing. It's also about planning ahead. This means really thinking about what happens as people age, paying close attention to their health and well-being and any changes they may be experiencing. It's also about ensuring people are in a home that they can grow older in, and supporting people around issues of death, dying and bereavement.

The third aspect of the quilt is about creating a caring environment for everyone. This involves looking after staff, enabling them to be confident and well trained to provide excellent care as people get older. It's also about helping staff to feel happy and well supported in their work. This is also about looking after family carers, supporting them, really listening to them, and keeping them involved in decisions, and being aware of their changing needs as they too get older. And very importantly, it means making sure the person is in a nurturing environment that respects their human rights, enables people to be supported by people that they like, and by people who like them.

When this patchwork of good practice comes together, we get the quilt of excellence, the best ways to support people with learning disabilities and their family carers as they get older.

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Discussion

While the questions in this activity are highly personal and subjective, our research has shown that there are a number of key principles that underpin all excellent care for people with learning disabilities as they get older. If these elements have been missing from your practice, consider the reasons why. Within your role, what might you be able to do to help address this?

The Quilt of Excellence is a useful resource that reminds practitioners of the key issues they should be mindful of when working alongside a person with learning disabilities who is getting older. It is a prompt to services, practitioners and families to plan ahead and pre-empt the physical, mental, emotional and social changes that people are likely to experience as they age.