Foundation for all
The NHS must make it as easy for people with a disability to use health services as everyone else. This is called making Reasonable adjustments.
Reasonable adjustment digital flag: NHS England has built the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag in the NHS Spine to help health and care professionals to record, share and view details of Reasonable Adjustments across the NHS, wherever the person is treated. The flag shows what Reasonable Adjustments are needed for a person.
NHS England published an Reasonable adjustments information standard which said that health and social care providers had to implement the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag in their services.
LEDER policy 2021: Learning from lives and deaths – People with a learning disability and autistic people. It will serve as a guide to professionals working in all parts of the health and social care system on their roles in delivering LeDeR. This policy introduces the inclusion of autism into the programme for the first time, from late 2021.
Oliver McGowan training: Training on Learning Disability and Autism. CQC-registered providers must ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role.
Aiming to save lives by ensuring the health and social care workforce have the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability.
Primary care
Annual health checks: An annual health check can improve people with a learning disability’s health by spotting problems earlier. People with a learning disability can sometimes find it hard to know when they are unwell, or to tell someone about it. A health check once a year gives people time to talk about anything that is worrying them and means they can get used to going to visit the doctor.
Learning disability identification for register: guidance for general practice.
STOMP/STAMP: is an NHS England work programme to stop the inappropriate prescribing of psychotropic medications. STOMP and STAMP are the responsibility of all professionals in primary care, secondary care, educational settings and social care. They promote information sharing and collaboration across sectors of care to minimise all forms of inappropriate prescribing.
Community
Developing support and services: For children and young people with a learning disability, autism or both.
Building the right home and Building the right support: A national plan to develop community services and close inpatient facilities for people with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition.
Capital guidance update: Overview of the NHS capital settlement for 2024/25.
Integrated care boards
Executive lead roles: This statutory guidance is intended to set NHS England’s expectations about fulfilling these executive lead functions and outline the responsibilities of these roles in more detail. Each ICB must have a board-level executive lead for:
- children and young people (aged 0 to 25)
- children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
- safeguarding (all-age), including looked after children and care leavers
- learning disability and autism (all-age)
- down syndrome (all-age)
Joint guiding principles for integrated care systems: a set of guiding principles setting out how partners can work together to improve the lives and outcomes of people with a learning disability and autistic people.
Autism National Framework: Guidance intended to help integrated care boards deliver improved outcomes in all-age autism assessment pathways. This includes a national framework with ten principles for autism assessment services and guidance about applying these principles throughout the commissioning cycle. It also includes operational guidance, intended to guide strategic decision making about the range of autism assessment service that should be provided in each area.
Mental health services
DSR and C(E)TR policy and guide: This policy aims to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions for people with a learning disability and autistic people.
Autism and learning disability Keyworkers: a new workforce supporting children, young people and families to help avoid unnecessary admissions to mental health hospitals.
Meeting the needs of autistic adults in mental health services: Guidance for integrated care boards, health organisations and wider system partners.
Mental health rehabilitation: Commissioner guidance for adult community mental health rehabilitation services. This guidance sets out evidence, principles, and good practice service models for community mental health rehabilitation services to support good outcomes for people, families, and carers.
Mental health inpatients
Inpatient commissioning framework: guidance for the commissioning of mental health inpatient services.
Brick by brick: Resources to support discharge planning.
NHS England sensory friendly resource pack: Resources to improve the sensory environment for autistic people.
Culture of care standards: guidance for all providers to improve the culture of care within inpatient settings everyone wants to experience.
Reducing long term segregation and restrictive practice: A series of national projects (ICETRs, Hopes model) aim to improve the experiences of people who are being cared for in hospital including those in long-term segregation. Each project is a direct response to recommendations made in Baroness Hollins’ review of the independent Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews of people with a learning disability and autistic people who are living in the restricted way described as long-term segregation
Acute
Mental capacity act: Guidance to support implementation of the Mental Capacity Act in acute trusts for adults with a learning disability. A Health Services Safety Investigations Body report in 2023 on the care of acute hospital inpatients with a learning disability in England, found variation in staff understanding and application of the MCA in the care of people with a learning disability. Trusts leadership are asked to make sure they understand the guidance, take the actions indicated and make these resources available to all frontline staff.
Health and Care Passports: Guidance and template to support integrated care systems (ICS) to review existing arrangements for health and care passports (or hospital passports).
Clinical guide for front line staff: Important advice for staff who support people with a learning disability or autistic people.