Learning Disability Today
Blue Sky Offices Shoreham
25 Cecil Pashley Way
Shoreham-by-Sea
West Sussex
BN43 5FF
United Kingdom
T: 01273 434943
Contacts
Alison Bloomer
Managing Editor
[email protected]
[email protected]
What changes to NICE/SIGN guidance would you like to see?
We believe adding sections to all NICE Guidance that addresses the complex interaction between physical health conditions, learning disability, and autism would be a great step forward. We also ask that we be provided with a range of accessible resources for each avoidable cause of death to help us have enhanced proactive educational conversations with the people we support about the health risks they may face, the preventative actions we can help them take, and the treatment options.
What could the sector itself do better to improve health inequality?
Take steps that are meaningful and understandable to autistic people and those with a learning disability on how to prevent disease and disorders that lead to death. We are of the view that in addition to autistic people and those with a learning disability not always having easy/smooth access to services once they become unwell being a reason why autistic people and those with a learning disability, on average, die earlier than the general population, we are of the view it is also because we as a nation do not take enough steps to help them to understand how to stay well in the first place.
Here at Kisimul, we have a long-running physical health campaign that aims to educate our care colleagues on how to support and raise awareness among the people we support on how to live a healthy life, and prevent disease. This has included the use of simple and accessible tools to ensure that people understand the importance of healthy eating, exercise, oral health care, etc, which our community has really engaged with, to the point where they have co-produced their own healthy eating cookbook.
Do you have any other ideas or innovative solutions to help prevent preventable deaths?
We think the single most important thing is that autistic people and those with a learning disability have regular (annual) GP reviews as a minimum. In these times of GP practice accessibility being inconsistent in some areas, we are still seeing issues with obtaining these, and some are still being completed virtually, which we know is not as effective in identifying disease as a thorough face-to-face medical examination.
In addition, we advocate for the full rollout of the NHS England Enhanced Health in Care Homes initiative. Where we have it, it works wonderfully well, but it is not present in all geographical areas.
