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Rebecca Fish

I am a researcher working for CeDR. I have been working with people with learning disabilities since 1997. I write about institutions, self-harm, 'challenging behaviour' and gender.

Blog: Use of restraint on locked wards

By Rebecca Fish In 2005 I published some research with my colleague, Eloise Culshaw, about physical intervention (commonly referred to as restraint) on locked wards for people with learning disabilities, looking at experiences of staff and service users. We found that sometimes, restraint is not used as a last resort: Service-user: All I have to […]

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Accessible summary: How do women with learning disabilities ‘move on’ through secure units?

Rebecca Fish and Hannah Morgan People with learning disabilities have to stay in secure units if they have broken the law or if they are a risk to themselves or other people. It is important that people can move on through these services, and then back out into the community. We asked 16 women and […]

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Accessible Summary: Working with men who self-harm in a learning disability secure unit

Rebecca Fish and Hannah Morgan Introduction Some research from Canada and the US says that more young men are self-harming.  There is a small amount of research from the UK. This says that when men self-harm, their injuries are usually more violent and can be seen as accidental. Some of the research talks about UK […]

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Accessible Summary: The Big Bedtime Audit

Evening routines in the community By Elaine James, Mark Harvey and Rob Mitchell Accessible summary by Rebecca Fish An NHS England report called Building the right support was published in 2015. The report set targets to cut down the amount of people in units by about half before 2019. The report asked for better services […]

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Accessible Summary: Women with learning disabilities living on locked wards

Rebecca Fish In 2012, I spent time in three of women’s wards in an NHS learning disability secure unit. I wrote a book about it called ‘Locked Away’. I asked women what they liked about living here, and what they did not like. I also talked to staff. This is what I found out: Life […]

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Blog: How do health professionals provide accessible information?

by Dr Rebecca Fish, Professor Chris Hatton (Lancaster University) and Professor Umesh Chauhan (UCLAN) Introduction We recently worked on a study that was commissioned by East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). We wanted to find out how health professionals in Lancashire work with people who have communication and accessibility needs. There are clear health disparities […]

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Accessible Summary: What information do people with learning disabilities want with their medications?

By Dr Rebecca Fish and Professor Chris Hatton, (Lancaster University), Professor Umesh Chauhan, (UCLAN) This blog is about the information that people receive about their medicine. The project was organised and paid for by the East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). We wanted to find out what information people get from their GP and Pharmacist about […]

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