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How NHS England is transforming care for people with a learning disability and/or autism

Hazel Watson, NHS England’s Head Nurse for Learning Disability, tells Katie Matthews about the transforming care programme to improve services for people with a learning disability and/or autism, who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition.

NHS England is committed to making sure that people with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition, receive the right care in the right settings, with the right support.

We are working, along with our partners, to deliver the three year national plan (Building the Right Support) to transform care for people with a learning disability. This plan is about enabling people to live more independent lives, closer to home, with more say about the support they receive. This is as much about improving quality of life as quality of care.

Work is ongoing with the 48 Transforming Care Partnerships (TCPs) who are delivering this ambition, to review their local plans. To do this properly we need to involve the people and communities whose lives the plans are about.

On average people with a learning disability have poorer physical and mental health and a lower life expectancy. We urgently need to understand and reduce these inequalities and we are working in a number of areas to do so:

Our learning disabilities programme aims to transform the lives of the whole population of people with a learning disability, not just those receiving treatment.

Occasionally we invite guest bloggers to write posts for NHS England. Those posts are marked as authored by “Guest blogs”.

One comment

  1. Louise Bate says:

    Hi, we’ve just published an easy read version of the national NHS & care complaints guide produced last year by Healthwatch England & Citizens Advice. It’s important that everyone gets the support they need to complain if they are not happy with the care or treatment they have received, in a format that’s right for them. Please share the guide, it’s free to download from our website: http://www.healthwatchdorset.co.uk