Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to include all people with a learning disability on the GP learning disability register.

Inclusion on the learning disability register is crucial to ensuring that people receive the right support at the right time. Anyone can ask to go on their general practitioner’s (GP’s) learning disability register if they think they have a learning disability. However, we know that not everyone with a learning disability is on a GP register. There is work underway in NHS England to address this issue. This includes work nationally and regionally to encourage children and young people to join the register at age 14 and access annual health checks. There is also evolving work to support people without a diagnosis of learning disability to access the register and more specialised services, which will inform guidance. Additionally, a leaflet for parents and carers was publicised in the National Health Service primary care bulletin and a bigger launch in schools is planned in September 2023

NHS England has issued guidance to support GPs to better identify people who should be on the register, including information on specific diagnostic codes, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/improving-identification-of-people-with-a-learning-disability-guidance-for-general-practice.