Alison Giraud-Sanders, et al. – Public Health England, 2014
This report is about making reasonable adjustments in end of life care for people with learning disabilities.
Under English equalities law public sector organisations are required to tailor the ways they provide care so that disabled people are not disadvantaged. Law governing the regulation of healthcare services is more explicit about the requirement for healthcare providers to ‘avoid unlawful discrimination including, where applicable, by providing for the making of reasonable adjustments in service provision to meet the service user’s individual needs’, and to have systems in place to enable them to assess and monitor the quality of the services provided regularly against this and other requirements.
Reasonable adjustments can mean alterations to buildings by providing lifts, wide doors, ramps and tactile signage, but may also mean changes to policies, procedures and staff training to ensure that services work equally well for people with learning disabilities.