More Than ‘Keeping an Eye’: Ensuring Children With Intellectual Disabilities Are Safe and Feel Safe in Hospital

Abstract

Background: There is a lack of evidence to inform the provision of safe hospital care and treatment to children with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Interviews were conducted with 52 parents/carers of 42 children with intellectual disabilities and 98 hospital staff about the care of children with intellectual disabilities during in-patient stays in English hospitals. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings: Factors potentially impacting on the safety of children with intellectual disabilities in hospital are encompassed under four domains: parental vigilance, child vulnerability, staffing capability and capacity, and the environment. Conclusions: A new healthcare lens is needed which places equal priority on the non-medical and medical needs of patients, and which recognises the importance of children and their parents both feeling and being safe in hospital. The use of a risk assessment instrument to facilitate this has the potential for multiple improvements at all levels.