The publication of Valuing People Now in 2009 signalled a renewed focus on delivery of the key objectives of the 2001 White Paper. To reinforce this focus, the Government introduced two self-assessment frameworks for health and local authorities to complete. We have posted previously about the progress of partnership boards using this framework Method The [read the full story…]
UK law requires public services to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people following the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and the Equality Act (2010), which does not cover Northern Ireland. For people with physical disabilities these have predominantly focused on the environment, whilst for people with a learning disabilities it requires more commonly clear explanations and [read the full story…]
Annual health checks for people with learning disabilities were introduced as part of the Direct Enhanced Service in England in 2008 and a recent review of studies involving over 5000 people with learning disabilities showed that the provision of checks consistently found unmet health needs and enabled targeted action to address these needs. Health checks [read the full story…]
Avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions for ‘ambulatory care sensitive conditions’ (ACSCs), reduces costs and should provide good outcomes for patients. ACSCs are defined as those where ‘effective management’ at the primary care level should avoid admission to hospital. Many of the conditions identified as ACSCs, for example convulsions and epilepsy are more common among people with [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about issues relating to cancer screening in people with learning disabilities and the impact this has on early identification of signs and symptoms and consequent timely treatment. The researchers from the improving health and lives learning disabilities public health observatory (LDPHO) were interested to know whether reasonable adjustments were being made [read the full story…]
In the UK as a whole the most recent estimate from an Action for Advocacy survey is that 55.4% of advocacy organisations provide services for people with learning disabilities, although there is growing concern about the precarious nature of funding for many of those services. The IHAL report points to the argument that the development [read the full story…]
Improving Health and Lives, the learning disabilities public health observatory was set up in April 2010 following the publication of the Michael report. It exists to help understand the experience of people with learning disabilities and to produce evidence aimed at bringing about improvements. The annual report looks at information collected by government departments. IHAL [read the full story…]
Learning Disability Partnership Boards were established as a result of the Valuing People White Paper to work within the overall framework of local strategic partnerships to oversee inter-agency planning and service development. Crucial to the success of partnership boards was that the membership should be multi stakeholder, to include service users, carers, senior representatives from [read the full story…]
This update from the improving health and lives public health observatory updates previous work from 2008, where estimates of future need for services for people with learning disabilities were made. The current report estimates the need for adult social care support for people with learning disabilities in England for the period 2009-2026. The new model [read the full story…]
Based on the ‘Health Inequalities and People with Learning Disabilities in the UK’ report this document looks at ways to put the evidence base into practice to improve health outcomes for people with learning disabilities. The report looks at what is known about the social determinants of poorer health in people with learning disabilities, increased [read the full story…]
