Overmedication of people with intellectual disabilities, particularly with the off-licence use of psychotropic medications to address distressed and challenging behaviour is a major public health concern. As a result, NHS England has launched a major initiative five years ago called STOMP (STopping OverMedication of People with learning disability, autism or both). Behaviours of concern or challenging behaviours often is a means of communication on the part of the person with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, non-pharmacological management instead of off-licence use of psychotropic medication should be the first option of management as recommended by national and international guidelines (NICE 2015; Deb et al., World Psychiatry, 2009). Psychiatrists carry a major responsibility to address this public health concern. In this symposium, we will address different ways to address this concern by providing psychiatrists with means to reduce overmedication. This will involve the presentation of a recently developed staff training programme called SPECTROM, non-pharmacological management such as Positive Behaviour Support (PBS), and an outcome/audit measure to assess the effect of the pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions systematically. These presentations will improve the clinical practice of psychiatrists and other allied professionals who are involved in the management of challenging behaviours in people with intellectual disabilities.
Chair: Professor Asit Biswas, University of Leicester
Staff training to reduce the overmedication: SPECTROM - Professor Shoumitro (Shoumi) Deb, Imperial College London
Positive behaviour support to reduce the overmedication of people with intellectual disabilities - Mr David Gerrard, St. Nicolas Hospital, Gosforth
Tools to help reduce the overmedication: CONNECT - Professor Rohit Shankar, University of Plymouth
