Covid-19

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]]

People with learning disabilities have been marginalised in health and care for decades. We know from the learning disability mortality review that people with learning disabilities have a life expectancy 20 years lower than the general public. Now we know that, during the pandemic, people with learning disabilities have been even more at risk. After adjusting for age, people with learning disabilities are six times more likely to die from covid than their peers. Despite that, the Government have not given people with learning disabilities the protection and support they need in the pandemic. It took months for people with Down’s syndrome to be added to the clinically extremely vulnerable list, and Ministers still do not fully accept that people with learning disabilities are more vulnerable to covid than their peers.

Only those people with a severe or profound learning disability indicated on their GP record are currently eligible for a vaccine in cohort 6. A Public Health England report on deaths from covid in people with learning disabilities details the fact that GP records are not sufficient to reach all people with learning disabilities who are at risk. It said:

“The great majority of people recognised as having learning disabilities in schools are not recognised as such by health services in adulthood. Those missed… are known to have poor physical health, including higher rates of obesity and diabetes, putting them at increased risk of death from COVID-19.”

This means that people may be being denied the vaccine they need because of a postcode lottery in medical record keeping. The learning disability mortality review programme report on covid deaths told us that deaths were not limited to people with severe or profound learning disabilities. Can the Minister tell us that the Government will update the vaccines delivery plan to make clear that all people with learning disabilities should get the vaccine as part of cohort 6?

It is also deeply worrying to hear that people with learning disabilities may have been denied life-saving medical treatment for no reason other than they have a learning disability. The Care Quality Commission found that inappropriate “do not resuscitate” orders may have led to potentially avoidable deaths during the first wave of the pandemic. That was rightly condemned, with both the CQC and NHS England making clear that “do not resuscitate” orders based solely on someone’s learning disability should not be used, but there are reports that this practice has resumed. It is clear that the CQC does not have the powers it needs to address this, so will the Government agree to suspend all “do not resuscitate” orders applied to people with learning disabilities during the pandemic until a full review can be carried out? Access to healthcare and treatment is a human rights issue and an equality issue. It is past time that we took action to ensure that people with learning disabilities get the same access to the healthcare and treatment they need as their peers do.