Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to increase support for learning disability services in West Dorset constituency.

Each integrated care board must have an executive lead for learning disability and autism. To make it easier for people with a learning disability and autistic people to use health services, there is work underway in NHS England to make sure that staff in health settings know if they need to make reasonable adjustments for people. This includes the development of a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag, which enables the recording of key information about a patient, including if a person is autistic or has a learning disability, and their reasonable adjustment needs, to ensure support can be tailored appropriately.

Under the Health and Care Act 2022, from 1 July 2022, Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered providers are required to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role. This helps to ensure that staff have the right knowledge and skills to provide safe and informed care. To support providers to meet the statutory training requirement, we have been rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism, otherwise known as Oliver’s Training, to the health and adult social care workforce. A code of practice has been published to guide CQC registered providers on how to meet the statutory requirement for learning disability and autism training under the Health and Care Act 2022 which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oliver-mcgowan-code-of-practice