Local hospitals review each other’s treatment of patients with learning disabilities

10,000 local people with learning disabilities across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will start to see some positive changes at their local hospital, after a peer review identified areas for improvement.

For the first time, teams of acute and community nurses, who are experts at caring for people with learning disabilities, visited neighbouring acute hospitals to see what is working well and which areas need more work.

Julia Barton, associate director of nursing and patient experience at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, chaired the review: “We went into each hospital with a critical eye to really scrutinise services and how things work for people with learning disabilities. We want people with learning disabilities to receive a consistently high quality of care in all of our hospitals”.

Julie Kerry, associate director of learning disabilities at South Central Strategic Health Authority, said: “We find that people with learning disabilities don’t always access urgent healthcare when they should. When they do go into hospital they don’t always get the same care as other people and often face difficulties with communication and anxiety.

“The health needs of people with learning disabilities need to be understood by all hospital staff, from doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and healthcare assistants; to catering teams, porters and receptionists. ‘Reasonable adjustments’ need to be made so patients get the care they need and are kept safe.

“One of the things we hear a lot is ‘we treat everyone the same’ but people with learning disabilities need to be treated differently, for example needing more time with the doctor and information in easy read format.”

Good practices identified through the peer review include:

• Having a specialist learning disability acute liaison nurse working in hospitals
• Use of hospital passports. A document carried with the patient that includes key information about their condition, their likes and dislikes and things that they feel are important
• More EasyRead information
• Picture menus to help people choose what to eat
• Training for hospital staff from people with learning disabilities
• Patient experience surveys for people with learning disabilities

Julie said: “These improvements will help people with learning disabilities to access healthcare more easily and will improve their experience of going into hospital. We want to provide patients with information about their health that they can understand; we need to support them in communicating symptoms and concerns, make sure they get the right treatment and care and don’t stay in hospital longer than other patients. We must also ensure patients are supported when they leave at hospital and are recovering home.”

Areas that need further improvement include:

• More help for new mums with learning disabilities
• More help for people with learning disabilities who are dying
• Making sure that carers are involved and supported
• Making sure that all staff are aware that a patient has a learning disability and are informed of any special adjustments in care needed.

Julie added: “More work is still needed, but things are getting much better. Now we are working to make sure that the good practices we’ve identified are adopted in other hospitals.

“We found the review so useful that we are planning to do a second review in the spring, which will involve people with learning disabilities, families of patients and carers.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The report from the peer review can be found online www.southcentral.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/110719-Learning-Disab...

The organisations which took part in the review are:
* Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
* Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
* Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
* NHS Isle of Wight
* Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust
* Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust
* Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust
* Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
* Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust
* Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust