A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Council and councillors

Agenda item

LEARNING DISABILITIES MORTALITY REVIEW

To receive Report No.30/2019 from the Strategic Director for People and a presentation from Kim Sorsky, Head of Service Prevention and Complex Care Services and James Lewis, Local Area contact, LeDeR Programme, LLR.

Minutes:

Report No.30/2019 was received from the Strategic Director for People and Kim Sorsky, Head of Service, Prevention and Complex Care Services. The purpose of the report was to seek comments from the Adults and Health Scrutiny Panel on the initial work and learning from the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) programme work completed to date.

 

A presentation (appended to the minutes) was also received from Steven Forbes, Strategic Director for Adult Social Services, Leicester City Council, and James Lewis, Local Area Contact, LeDeR Programme, LLR.

 

During discussions the following points were noted:

 

·         There was a huge disparity between the median life expectancies for men and women (81.8 and 85.3 years respectively) and that of a person with learning disabilities which stood at 58 years.

·         The Programme was looking to recruit LeDeR reviewers who would volunteer time as part of their professional role. Once a referral had been made, the reviewers would review the person’s care leading up to their death and outline any identified learning. Current Rutland County Council reviewers included a social worker, occupational therapist and a physiotherapist.

·         Awareness of the issue was being raised by the project team who were reporting to service user groups, scrutiny and overview panels and social care staff.

·         LeDeR referrals from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups were only at 10% where 20% was a more expected level.

·         Nationally 64% of those with a learning disability died in hospital compared to 57% in LLR and 47% of the general population.

·         The LeDeR review existed because it was recognised nationally that the experience was not good enough and that avoidable deaths had to be prevented.

·         In Rutland, Health Action Plans for those with learning disabilities were all in place. These were key plans that moved with the person and which were reviewed annually by social workers and monitored by the compliance team.

·         Rutland also had specialist social workers for those with learning disabilities and offered learning disability training to all support workers.

·         Providers needed education about how they could raise their standards of care but good care did not have to be difficult.

·         The next steps for LeDeR steering groups was to conduct an analysis of key themes and write a local strategy which would be presented to Scrutiny committees.

·         The support plans for those with learning disabilities would identify if, as for the general population, there were any lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise that affected their mortality rates.

·         The group that was of most concern were those who did not meet adult social care thresholds. Rutland would be targeting work with this group.

·         There was a national programme called STOMP which was trying to tackle the over medication of people with a learning disability with psychotropic drugs, which tended to have a significant impact on physical health. Psychotropic drugs included medicines for psychosis, depression, anxiety and sleep problems and were sometimes given to people with learning disabilities because their behavior was seen as challenging.

·         The use of normal, regular medicines also needed to be reviewed on a regular basis as individuals with learning disabilities could not easily express how these medicines affected them.

·         The mortality review was only able to access those who had been given a diagnosis but there was likely a large under recording of those with a learning disability.

·         The Transforming Care Programme had seen individuals present with a mental health issue but who actually had an underlying undiagnosed learning disability.

·         A Learning difficulty, eg dyslexia, was distinct from a learning disability which affected intellect and IQ.

·         People in prison were not covered by the LeDeR review.

 

 

RESOLVED:

 

1.    The Panel COMMENTED on the joint working across LLR and CCGs which had been established to improve the standard and quality of care for people with learning disabilities.

 

2.    The Panel REQUESTED that the LeDeR programme return to Adults and Health Scrutiny Panel later this year (2019) to present local learning, recommendations and action plans as to how health and social care services could be improved in Rutland.

 

 

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Mr Walters left the meeting at 9.00am and did not return.

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Supporting documents: