Flagship death review programme had ‘unclear and limited’ impact

A flagship government programme to improve care for people with learning disabilities has had an ‘unclear’ and ‘limited’ impact after six years, an NHS England report has found.

A report into the national learning disability mortality review programme (LeDer) has criticised it for failing to impact improvement of services both nationally and locally.

The national LeDer programme was launched in 2015 after high profile failures by Southern Health Foundation Trust to investigate the deaths of patients with learning disabilities. Since its launch, the programme has consistently struggled to carry out the number of reviews required, with the backlog growing to 3,800 last year.

The news follows a year of increasing concern over the disproportionate death rate for those with learning disabilities during the pandemic.

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Source: HSJ, 24 March 2021