One avoidable death is one too many

In this issue of Lancet Psychiatry, Marta Buszewicz and colleagues1 and Sally-Ann Cooper and colleagues2 report the results of two studies of the effects of health checks given by healthcare professionals to adults with intellectual disabilities. Deinstitutionalisation for people with intellectual disabilities in the UK during the past few decades has been a revolutionary success, and enabled the vast majority to live in the community—on their own, with their families, or with paid support.3 Concurrently, this development has allowed researchers and research-active clinicians in the specialty to undertake epidemiological studies of community-based populations of people with intellectual disabilities.