Getting Voices Heard for Disability Health Services

John at the consultation

People with learning disabilities and their carers were given the chance to have their say at an event at Rochdale Cricket Club on 13 September. Over 30 people attended the event, set up by learning disability practitioners to look at the problems faced by people with learning disabilities when accessing healthcare services.

It was part of a debate which is touching all parts of the community, including prisoners, black and minority ethnic groups, NHS staff and disability groups at events across the area.

Two programmes called Healthy Futures and Making it Better are discussing options for both community and hospital NHS services which will affect 810,000 people in Bury, Heywood and Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale, Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale, Calderdale and beyond.

Rochdale PCT’s Health Facilitation Lead for people with learning disabilities is Sue Smith.

She said “People with learning disabilities have a right to be consulted along with the general population; we need to consider the best way to do this.

“In previous consultations they have asked for a variety of accessible methods of communication including videos, pictures and time to consider and discuss issues. It is also essential to consider the views of carers.

“Those that attended were able to provide us with some extremely valuable feedback. Common themes arose from our focus groups which included concerns around travel expenses if patients would be required to visit hospitals further away. The attendees also stated clearly that they would like to see information in a format that is more accessible and appropriate to their needs so that they can be kept better informed of any planned service changes. All these issues will be fed back to the Healthy Futures Programme Office for consideration when we go into final consultation later in the year. ”

PPI lead Tasnim Mogul said: “We have a duty to include all patient groups by making information available in the most appropriate format.

“It’s just a matter of adapting the way that we work. In this case, we used visual aides and drawings to get the message across.”

She added: “We shall also have the expertise and experience of learning disability practitioners and carers who have the knowledge and skills of supporting people who have a learning disability."

The discussion documents were published at the end of July as part of an ongoing engagement with patients, the public and staff and are a preliminary to the formal consultation in the late autumn.

For more details call Sue Smith on 01706 702111