by Andrew Holman
Note: This blog was first posted on the 29 October
Yesterdays voluminous newsletter from the Valuing People Support Team on health care must be the first one I have ever found interesting enough to print off. For years we have argued for major changes if people with learning disabilities are to get anything like equality in health. The subject is important, I have seen first hand how people’s health is ignored, eye sight left to deteriorate, or health interventions or procedures are not offered to someone because they have a learning disability. We are, of course, talking life and death here and I have seen people die far too early as a result of late diagnosis or complete lack of treatment.
It was, of course, an issue that was flagged up and included in Valuing People , along with a basic set of targets that we thought would get the ball rolling. I remember finding an example of good practice through the use of health advocates in an authority near Birmingham. These advocates managed to support a large number of people to get health checks that consequently raised a huge number of referrals for previously undiagnosed conditions. I hoped the introduction of annual health checks would be a useful way of ensuring everybody at last stood a chance of having something similar if done properly.
by Andrew HolmanAll seemed to little avail. The DRC report into health care for people with learning disabilities produced shocking results. The health scandals at both Cornwall and Sutton showed just how little attitudes and practices had changed. The targets once again have been not only well and truly missed but in a great many areas they seem to have been totally and scandalously ignored. It is no wonder horrendous situations still regularly occur. Any interventions from the Valuing People Support Team or learning disability Taskforce seemed to have been ineffectual at best.
The, at a time when the meaning of campaigning has been largely forgotten, and those organisations who do poke their heads above the parapet risk repercussions, often in the form of reduced or no funding for any future projects or work, Mencap comes up trumps. They are to be hugely congratulated on their publication “Death by Indifference”. This graphically illustrates several case histories where people suffered and died from a lack of health interventions and care. They were, of course, well aware of the risks they ran and needed pretty robust stories to see it through. The call was for an independent enquiry and the newsletter now gives us some detail about this.
Indeed, the newsletter gives us details about a whole raft of interventions that are starting. A renewed push for annual health checks, a UK Health and Leaning Disability Network has been set up. health information will soon be available there is a whole heap more like this over the newsletters 40 pages, its well worth a read if you don't get it direct. It can be found here.
And there are other initiatives. I have just been sent these leaflet details about screening produced by the picker institute that are also well worth a read. One on better support for *** screening (Sorry this stupid programme wont let me say a word for womens chests) and another on communication
It looks like things may be starting to move forward – long may it last!
ClipArt as ever is a courtesy of the Valuing People ClipArt collection.