Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the case of Connor Sparrowhawk, which was an absolutely tragic lack of care. I have met his mum, Dr Sara Ryan, and I greatly value her feedback on how we move forward with the LeDeR programme, because she has such an important insight into the matter. As I have said, NHS England is putting in additional funding to clear the backlog, and the NHS planning guidance for 2019-20 is very clear that clinical commissioning groups must have robust plans in place to make sure that LeDeR reviews are undertaken within six months of a notification of death in their local area. The resources are going in and the guidelines are there to ensure that that happens.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I must declare an interest: my sister was born with profound learning disabilities. Later this year, hopefully, she will celebrate her 60th birthday. During my lifetime, I have seen far too many young people with learning disabilities die premature deaths. One of the biggest problems is when they suffer a physical problem and have to go to A&E, or through the primary care system. If a doctor or surgeon diagnoses that individual, part and parcel of the communication is talking to them and getting a response. People with profound learning disabilities cannot do that, so doctors often issue DNRs—I have personal experience of this—on people who are perfectly capable of having a perfectly good quality of life. Can my hon. Friend ensure that individuals who have profound disabilities have a named person from the health service who will give advice before any such decisions are made?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his impassioned plea; he makes an excellent point. We have spoken quite comprehensively today about how important it is that people with learning disabilities are never written off as a “do not resuscitate”, because that is absolutely wrong. I can tell him—I think he will find this useful—that we have introduced annual GP health checks for people with a learning disability to help to recognise these health inequalities, so that some long-term health conditions can be picked up much earlier and diagnosed more quickly, and prevention can be put in place much sooner.