Evaluating personal and intimate care practice in local services for people with intellectual disabilities

Policies describing practice in intimate and personal care for people with intellectual disabilities tend towards the general and euphemistic, instructing staff to treat people with respect and dignity without detailing principles of good practice. The present paper outlines a methodology for helping staff teams to initiate discussion about how they currently support people with intimate care, and how they could develop increased consistency and efficiency. In essence, the approach uses interviews to elicit general attitudes towards personal care, which enables service managers to identify issues for training and further debate. The key focus of the evaluation is the use of a second, person-centred questionnaire which establishes similarities and differences between staff approaches to the same individual. This provides material for developing best practice around the specific tasks and activities that the individual needs for safe, comfortable and healthy daily living.