Enabling mainstream systems to be more inclusive and responsive to people with disabilities: Hospital encounters of adults with cognitive disabilities. Report for the National Disability Research and Development Agenda

The study concerns the interfaces across mainstream service systems, people with disabilities and their families, and disability service systems. Maximising the way members of these three groups communicate and work together is a major challenge in the current disability policy environment and one that significantly affects the quality of life of people with disabilities. We take hospital systems as an exemplar mainstream service system and people with cognitive disabilities (intellectual disability and traumatic brain injury) as the exemplar group of service users with disability. Many people with cognitive disabilities have additional impairments (physical, sensory, psychosocial), and their difficulties with cognition, communication and self-direction pose some of the most complex issues requiring accommodations by individuals and service systems.