Summary
Learning Disability Week is the third week of June every year. The event, organised by the charity Mencap, is an opportunity to raise awareness about different learning disabilities and challenge some of the barriers people who have learning disabilities face.
According to Mencap, a learning disability is a person's reduced intellectual ability, meaning they can face difficulty with everyday activities. People with a learning disability can sometimes need extra support to learn new skills, understand complicated information or interact with other people. It can be particularly challenging for people with learning disabilities and their families when accessing healthcare services.
To mark Learning Disability Week, we are sharing 11 resources, blogs and reports from the hub for patients, their families and healthcare professionals on breaking down these barriers.
Content
Women with learning disabilities are less likely to access cervical and breast cancer screening when compared to the general population. In this study, the Social Ecological Model was used to examine the inequalities faced by women with learning disabilities in accessing cervical and breast cancer screening in England. The authors suggest that multiple methods to reduce the inequalities faced by women with learning disabilities are needed, and that these can be achieved through reasonable adjustments.
2 Pharmacists can do more to bridge the safety gaps for people with learning disabilities
People with learning disabilities are more likely to be taking multiple medicines, but labels are not designed with them in mind. This article in the Pharmaceutical Journal looks at a project run by a team at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The team ran exploratory workshops to listen to how people with learning disabilities engaged with information on medicines at home, at the doctors and at the pharmacy. The project highlighted that it is time to move away from standard labels and look towards more personalised medicine labels, actively promoting ways to support people with learning disabilities in taking their medicines.
In this blog, Mandy Anderton, a Clinical Nurse specialising in learning disability, explains how they are using shared decision making and reasonable adjustments to implement a new care pathway, where patients with a learning disability needing to undergo a medical investigation can receive deep sedation within their own home. Working with patients, carers, relatives, anaesthetists and others, the aim is to improve access to important medical investigations with minimal distress, where other avenues have been exhausted.
4 NHS England: Ask Listen Do – feedback, concerns and complaints
Ask Listen Do resources are designed to support organisations to listen, learn from and improve the experiences of children and adults who are autistic or have a learning disability, their families and carers, and make it easier for people, families and paid carers to give feedback, raise concerns and complain.
5 Tommy Jessop: Why I investigated hospital care for people like me
People with a learning disability are more than twice as likely to die from avoidable causes than the rest of the population. Actor Tommy Jessop and BBC Panorama investigated some of the stories of families who say they were let down by their medical care.
6 How can GP practices help improve health outcomes for people with learning disabilities?
In this Patient Safety Learning interview, Mandy Anderton explains some of the barriers people with a learning disability face in accessing safe care and how adjustments can be made within GP practices to improve outcomes. Mandy lists national improvements that she believes would reduce health inequalities in this area.
7 Making reasonable adjustments for patients with a learning disability is G.R.E.A.T.
Developed by David Havard, this poster shows a number of ways in which reasonable adjustments can easily be made for patients with a learning disability.
8 HSSIB: Caring for adults with a learning disability in acute hospitals
The aim of this investigation and report is to help improve the inpatient care of adults with a known learning disability in acute hospital settings. It focuses on people referred urgently for hospital admission from a community setting, such as a person’s home or residential home.
9 Video: The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism
This animation aims to help staff and employers across health and social care understand Oliver's Training and why it is so vitally important. It was co-designed and co-produced with autistic people and people with a learning disability. Oliver McGowan died aged 18 in 2017 after being given antipsychotic medication to which he had a fatal reaction. He was given the medication despite his own and his family's assertions that he could not be given antipsychotics, and the fact that this was recorded in his medical records. The animation tells his story and highlights the increased risks facing people with learning disabilities and autism when accessing healthcare.
10 Palliative Care for People with Learning Disabilities
The Palliative Care for People with Learning Disabilities (PCPLD) is a charity created to ensure that patients with learning disabilities receive the coordinated support they need throughout their life.
The PCPLD Network brings together service providers, people with a learning disability and carers working for the benefit of individuals with learning disabilities who have palliative care needs.
Mandy Anderton talks in depth about the cross-system programme they launched in Salford to improve the health of people with learning disabilities and reduce inequalities across primary care. Mandy shares their award-winning poster, summarising the programme’s activities and outcomes, and gives her top tips for delivering a successful patient safety improvement project.
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