Learning Disability Today
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Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust has launched a new co-designed digital project to ensure that reasonable adjustments are in place for people with learning disabilities and autistic people, using a new electronic patient records system.
Patients can now share key information about themselves in these patient records, including whether they are autistic, have a learning disability, or have communication preferences and need reasonable adjustments, via a secure online portal at their first appointment.
This reduces staff duplication and improves continuity, making it easier for teams to understand and respond to individual needs wherever a person is seen. By capturing key information in patient records early and sharing it consistently, the Trust aims to strengthen care planning and support safer, more timely discharge.
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The new approach also provides reliable, real-time data, replacing retrospective audits with a live view of activity. This enables teams to see where people are in the system, understand outcomes, and target improvements where pressures or gaps exist.
Patient records co-designed with people with lived experience
The Trust redesigned how patient records are recorded and used by working closely with people with lived experience to help identify what information matters most to them, how it should be described and when it should be collected.
With input from clinicians, this helped shape the design of new data fields and clear flagging processes, ensuring the system reflects real experiences and practical needs.
These processes are now embedded at first contact and maintained throughout the care pathway, ensuring information is captured early, recorded consistently and available to all teams involved in a person’s care.
A lived experience partner said, “Not having to explain the same things again and again makes care feel calmer and more respectful. It helps staff understand you as a person, not just a diagnosis.”
Information is not always clearly flagged across systems
Kent and Medway identified that information about autism, learning disabilities and reasonable adjustments needed by patients was not always clearly flagged across its systems and patient records, which impacted the experience of patients and resulted in delays to discharge.
George Matuska, Lead for Learning Disability and Autism at Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust, said: “From listening to autistic people and people with learning disabilities, we know that having to repeat the same information multiple times is distressing and impacts the level of care they experience.
“By capturing this information early and making it visible to everyone involved in a person’s care, we can plan reasonable adjustments properly rather than reacting later. This is incredibly important, as it improves the care we provide to patients and helps staff better understand a person’s needs from the outset, supporting more proactive, personalised mental health care.”
This digital infrastructure underpins a wider trust-wide programme to improve outcomes for autistic people and people with a learning disability, supporting national expectations on reasonable adjustment digital flags and helping to reduce inequalities in mental health care.
