Mental health services for adults with mild intellectual disability

Meeting the mental health needs of people with mild intellectual disability (ID) can be a challenge to all mental health services. Not everyone with ID will be eligible to receive specialist ID services and therefore they rely on general mental health services to support them. The purpose of this College Report is to both inform readers on the complexities of providing care for this group of people, and how general and specialist services can co-operate to meet their needs.

It is aimed it at psychiatrists and clinical staff working at the frontline of psychiatric services, and general practitioners providing services for people with ID. It includes:

• A review of service provision for people with mild ID across the four countries of the UK
• An oversight of the current evidenced-based thinking on what constitutes mild ID from an operational diagnostic perspective.
• The role, challenges and ambiguities of cognitive testing in this population.

The Report’s conclusions are reinforced by the systematic review of current evidence on how care for this population is delivered that was undertaken and the review of all relevant NICE guidance on mental health applicable to people with ID that is provided. Drawing on the evidence, the Report also makes available a broad good-practice framework to enable psychiatrists, other practitioners, and services to self-measure and provide high quality care for people with mild ID and mental health problems.