Oliver McGowan training 'lifted scales from my eyes'

A senior doctor says he is shocked at how many deaths of people with learning disabilities and autism are "potentially preventable by really basic things".

Dr Andrew Kelso is a consultant neurologist and the executive medical director at the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (SNEE ICB).

The ICB, which commissions all health services, has rolled out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism, external to its health and social care professionals.

"That's the thing that keeps me awake at night," Dr Kelso told the BBC. "How little I knew before I went and how much I knew afterwards, and what a missed opportunity that might have been for me."

The mandatory training - for all NHS staff who work with the public - is named after Oliver McGowan, an 18-year-old from Bristol who died in 2016 after he was given an anti-psychotic drug he was allergic to, despite repeated warnings from his parents.

His mother Paula had lobbied for mandatory training to potentially "save lives".

Dr Kelso, a consultant specialising in epilepsy, said: "I thought I knew quite a lot about learning disability.

"But the scales fell off my eyes when I was in the training and realised how much I didn't know - and that's in a career where I see people with learning disability all the time.

"How many gaps are there in the knowledge of people that don't spend their entire career with learning disability and may just come across them every now and then?"

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Source: BBC News, 25 April 2025

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