Six Lives progress report on healthcare for people with learning disabilities (2013)

Summary

This is a 2013 progress report that follows up on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and Local Government Ombudsman’s 2009 ‘Six Lives’ report which investigated the deaths of six people with learning disabilities, first highlighted by Mencap in their 2007 report ‘Death by Indifference’.

The report covers:

1. what has happened since the publication of the report in October 2010 in the areas the Department of Health said it would give immediate priority to. These areas include early learning from the Learning Disabilities Public Health Observatory, monitoring progress in the Confidential Inquiry into the premature deaths of people with learning disabilities, supporting improvements in the take-up of annual health checks for people with learning disabilities and promoting good practice.
2. what the regulators – CQC, Monitor and the Equality and Human Rights Commission – have reported at the Ombudsmen’s request on what has happened in this area since 2010.
3. progress and key developments in other areas since the 2010 report, which we believe will be very important in continuing to improve the healthcare of people with learning disabilities. These include new responsibilities for improving the healthcare of people with learning disabilities following changes to the health system since 2010.

The report then looks at three other developments that will help to improve the health and wellbeing of people with a learning disability:

• work on identifying the determinants of good healthcare, addressed in the Health Equalities Framework for People with Learning Disabilities 2013.
• the development of Personal Health Budgets, including the commitment that everyone receiving Continuing Health Care will be offered a Personal Health Budget by 2014
• developments on safeguarding in the Care Bill, crucial for this vulnerable group.

The report includes an easy read summary.