| Sumario: | People with learning disabilities have more health needs than the general population and face greater difficulties in getting good health services. In February 2006 NHS Quality Improvement Scotland published a 'National Overview of Health Services for People with Learning Disabilities'. This was a summary of the standard of health services in each of the 15 main Health Boards areas in Scotland. The quality of services was measured by peer-review teams visiting each of the 15 geographical areas and using a set of quality indicators. People with learning disabilities and carers were part of the review teams. This article reports on how good the quality of health services was for people with complex health needs (for example, people with challenging behaviour, mental health problems, multiple and profound impairments). There is some evidence that the Health Boards providing the best quality services to people with complex health needs were the ones providing good quality services overall. This article describes the use of a set of evidence-based quality indicators to assess performance by 15 NHS Boards across Scotland in a national review, with a particular focus on the quality of services for people with complex health needs. Evidence based best practice and evaluative data from previous inspections were used to develop Quality Indicators in four domains. Areas reviewed were: involvement of children and adults with learning disabilities and carers in service planning; meeting complex health needs; inpatient/hospital services and planning services/partnership working. A connection between the group of quality indicators used to assess performance in 'meeting complex health needs' and overall measures of quality was observed. The importance of good quality services for people with complex health needs is discussed in light of these results.
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