New Learning Disability Annual Health Check Preparation Tool
GP surgeries in Herts are being encouraged to request that this is completed and returned before annual health checks are booked for people with learning disabilities. This is because reducing the risk of delays in diagnosis is something that needs to be a collaboration ALL YEAR ROUND between the person, the people that help them on a day to day basis and the GP surgery.
Do your care staff and the people they support know:
- What colour a healthy wee should be?
- What a healthy poo should look like?
- How to keep an eye on changes in breasts?
- How to keep an eye on changes in testicles?
- To keep an eye on moles for changes?
The annual health check prep tool points you to all the tools you need to ensure staff and people they support can, to the best of their ability, be health changes aware and get help early. It also ensures the surgery can complete all the standard information BEFORE the appointment and keep the appointment shorter and focussed on the bits that need to be talked about.
» Click here to download the Annual Health Check Preparation Tool
» Click here for more information on learning disabilities and health
» Click here for the bitesize session recording for care staff on Annual Health Checks
ANNUAL HEALTH CHECK REMINDER! – If you support someone with a learning disability then please check the date of their last annual health check and contact their Surgery to get booked in if it has been longer than a year since their last one. Click here to read more.
Screening inequalities
Screening inequalities exist among people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people and they are therefore less likely to access screening. However, in a drive to tackle health inequalities for people with a learning disability, the NHS set out a Long Term Plan with the ambition that by 2023/24, at least 75% of people aged 14 and over on the learning disability register receive an annual health check. The latest data shows that the NHS has already hit this target two years ahead of schedule with three quarters of people with a learning disability aged 14 and over having received an annual health check (at the same time as treating hundreds of thousands of patients with COVID-19).
» Read more about the NHS annual health check long term plan
» View Pauline Heslop ‘Screening people with learning disabilities – what do we know?’ presentation here
» Find out more about the PHE Screening inequalities strategy
» Click here to download the Annual Health Check Preparation Tool
Increasing the update of Annual Health Checks
NHS England and the NHS Improvement South West have created a new suite of videos to assist healthcare professionals to increase the uptake of annual health checks for people with learning disabilities. The suite of videos also has a focus for carers and families who care for people with learning disabilities who may want to learn more about the process.
» Click here for the video on an introduction to annual health checks for people with a learning disability for carers and family
» Click here for the video on oral health checks for people with a learning disability
» Click here for the video on an introduction to annual health checks for people with a learning disability
» Click here for the video on health action plans to support people with a learning disability
» Click here for Powerpoint slides from the webinar ‘Annual Health checks for people with Learning Disabilities’ – 17th March 2022