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Building on our plans for people with a learning disability

In her first blog as the new Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for Learning Disability, NHS England’s Director of Transformation, Dr Julie Higgins, discusses the progress made over the last year and her expectations and priorities for the year ahead:

It’s a real honour and a massive challenge to take on the role of SRO for NHS England’s Learning Disability programme.

I’ll be overseeing a team and a programme which has achieved a great deal already, especially in the last year since the publication of Transforming Care for People with a learning disability – Next Steps.

The main development has obviously been the publication of Building the Right Support, our joint plan with local government leaders, backed by national bodies such as the Care Quality Commission and Health Education England, to help people to lead more independent lives and have greater say and choice about the support they receive.

The over-arching message from Building the Right Support was that hospitals should never be considered homes for people with a learning disability. To achieve this we are working together to deliver new, better care options in the community, significantly reducing the need for lengthy stays in specialist hospitals – under our plan we want to see up to half of beds close within three years.

Read Dr Julie Higgins’s blog in full on our learning disabilities section.

Dr Julie Higgins

Julie has held a number of NHS positions including Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Public Health in PCTs; she led the development of CCGs in Greater Manchester. She has been the Regional Director of Commissioning in NHS England as well as and has been SRO for large scale hospital reconfigurations following hospital merger to improve child and maternity services. Julie was Vice Chair of the Greater Manchester Public Health Network which carried out a number of ground breaking public health initiatives including the development of the Greater Manchester Health Commission.

Before joining the NHS, Julie worked at London University in the field of immunology after gaining her PhD. Julie is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. She has a strong commitment to reducing health inequalities and alongside her working life has undertaken voluntary work with Youth Offending Teams.

In her Current role as Director of Transformation/SRO Learning Disabilities she is leading on:- Reducing health inequalities and improving health outcomes for people with Learning Disabilities; Improving services and reducing reliance on hospital beds, for people with learning disabilities and/or autism with mental health issues and/or behaviours that challenge.

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