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This paper aims to improve community care for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and/or autism. Lack of coordination between agencies leads to children and young people with the most complex needs falling between services. The North West Operational Delivery Network (ODN) for learning disability and autism set out to develop a model of care for mental health services for children and young people with ID and/or autism in North West England that would improve coordination between services and lead to better community care.

The ODN held a series of good practice events and consultations with stakeholders in North West England to look at gaps in service provision, national guidelines and agree on a pathway for services.

The ODN decided to use the THRIVE framework as the basis for a specific model of care. Interventions were mapped against the THRIVE groupings, including pathways and team specifications for assessment and support for children with autism, and models for child and adolescent mental health service support for ID and/or autism, for keeping children and young people with behaviour that challenges in the community and transition.

This model aims to provide the North West England region with a clear multi-agency approach for supporting the needs of this population and supports multi-agency commissioning, gap analysis, earlier intervention and improving health outcomes for this population.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the clinical perspective of the practicality, utility and face-validity of the dynamic support database (DSD) Red, Amber, Green (RAG) rating support tool within adult learning disabilities services in a North West NHS Foundation Trust. The aim of the current project is to evaluate the practicality, utility and face-validity of the DSD RAG rating support tool, as reported by clinicians who have been employing it.

A mixed-methods design was utilised by asking clinicians to complete a questionnaire in relation to the DSD Support Tool. Questionnaires were distributed across three community learning disability teams within the North West. A total of 50 clinicians completed the questionnaire which included rated responses for quantitative analysis and free-text comments for qualitative analysis.

Positive ratings given by clinicians suggested good practicality, utility and face-validity in relation to the tool. Analysis of the free-text comments suggested that the tool supported clinical judgement in a standardised way and helped discussions with commissioners. Feedback also provided insights into how the DSD support tool could be improved.

Further investigation would be required to yield higher numbers of participation across NHS Trusts to add reliability to the present findings.

The DSD support tool has been used within the NHS Foundation Trust for the last 12 months however the practicality, utility and face-validity of the tool had not been explored from the clinician perspective.