Autism and Learning Disability Training

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Lisa Cameron

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady must be Mystic Meg. I say that because that issue is exactly what I will come on to next.

Early years settings are a crucial place to start this work; the hon. Lady has hit the nail on the head. Early diagnosis and putting in place the building blocks of support from the outset can have a lifelong impact on a child’s attitude to education settings, and on their interaction and support from those settings; in fact, it can have a lifelong impact on their wellbeing.

If all education and care staff, particularly in early years settings, successfully underwent the right training, children who require extra support and assistance would be identified sooner, which would prevent some of the issues that we have heard about from developing. We heard from a teacher called Helen, who said that during her time in teacher training, which took four years, half a day was spent covering special educational needs. Such training leaves teachers ill-equipped to support a growing percentage of pupils in their classes.

I am sure that the Minister will tell me about the training that is provided. I expect that he will also tell me that the Government have published their strategy on special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement—not that I am trying to interpret his speech for him—and about all the increased investment in SEND, which is over £10.5 billion by 2024-25, and the universal services programme, which will receive £12 million in funding, and that £1.4 million is available for the strategic priorities grant to support students at risk of discontinuing higher education studies. Those numbers have very little meaning to those caught in the cyclone of the system if they do not filter through to create meaningful improvements on the ground. I will therefore set out what I would like to know from the brilliant Minister.

What assessment has the Minister’s Department made of the full picture of both learning disability training and autism training for education professionals? What level of understanding does he have about training—not only the quantity of training, but the quality of training? What conversations has he had with some of the excellent charities in this space and with the teachers, parents and children who actually live these things and therefore are experts by experience? To what level can he confidently tell me that all education professionals have the confidence to teach neurodivergent children and children with learning disabilities, so that their needs are met and their potential is realised? To what extent is the experience of students and their carers taken into consideration?

Mr Vickers, you have already heard about what I am about to say next. During my time as Minister of State for care, in the Department of Health and Social Care, I started work on introducing the Oliver McGowan mandatory training for all health and social care staff. That became law in the Health and Care Act 2022, and it is now the Government’s preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff.

The training is named after Oliver McGowan. Oliver was a remarkable young man whose tragic and completely avoidable death, at the age of just 17, shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better skills, better knowledge and better understanding of the needs of autistic people. It came about because of a meeting I had with Paula McGowan, Oliver’s incredible mum, who courageously shared her family’s unimaginable experiences with me and who has been a relentless advocate for the change that needed to happen. It is an honour to have Paula here today after she travelled all the way from Australia just to attend this debate.

Since November 2022, when the initial roll-out of the Oliver McGowan training began, over 1 million people have completed the first part. The training has received significant international interest in Canada, Australia and the Republic of Ireland, and as a result it has been made available on an e-learning platform. The initial feedback is incredibly exciting and shows a significant increase in participants’ knowledge, confidence and skill, with 88% of participants saying that they felt confident they could communicate with people with a learning disability and with autistic people, and with 84% of participants saying they felt more confident in their work.

The most significant thing about the training is that it is co-delivered with trainers who are autistic or learning disabled, and they are paid for their time. They are experts by experience and are able to give health and care professionals first-hand insight into how to listen, how to act and how to get this right.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I thank her for highlighting the wonderful training that is being rolled out. I wanted to bring to the attention of the House, through my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability, some work that we were doing with Caudwell Children and its national children’s centre, and to highlight their hope that they can augment some of the work that is being undertaken in the UK to provide timely diagnosis and holistic assessment for children with autistic spectrum disorder. I put on record our thanks to Trudi Beswick for leading that wonderful centre and taking that work forward.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

First of all, I am very pleased to see my hon. Friend on this side of the House. She does a brilliant job as the chair of the APPG for disability, and I am very grateful to her for taking the time to make that commendation.

I will conclude very quickly. Following the success of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training, Paula has started a petition for all staff in educational settings to have similar mandatory training on learning disabilities and autism. As I said, that training needs to start with professionals in early years settings and go all the way through to colleges and universities: teachers, lecturers and education staff must know how to adapt to their environment, how to listen to what young people are saying, how to understand, how to manage a sensory overload and crisis and how to adapt communication to meet individual needs. George, a teacher, said:

“Training is often focused on the symptoms rather than the sensory issues and the understanding behind it. Whilst dealing with symptomatic behaviour is important it can be difficult to understand some causes.”

Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Lisa Cameron

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, whose incredible work over many years campaigning on behalf of autistic people up and down the country has made a magnificent difference. She is right to raise this issue. It is of course unacceptable that people with autism have poorer health outcomes, and we are determined to address this. I meet regularly with representative groups and we take on board all their comments about how they would like to see the situation improved.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The report makes tragic reading. Some of our most vulnerable citizens are four times more likely to die prematurely than the general population, and there have been many avoidable deaths because of systemic failures. The situation cannot continue.

Let me ask the Minister three questions. First, will she look at the Scottish patient safety programme, a national programme that has been running since 2008 and is achieving good outcomes? Secondly, given that the Health and Social Care Committee has heard that learning disability nurses are very scarce, will she redouble the efforts to ensure that training for and recruitment to those roles are prioritised? Picking up symptoms early may be crucial to the prevention of morbidity. Thirdly, staff turnaround in social care is a real issue. Social care staff who know a client well, and can notice early changes such as signs of illness and report them timeously to ensure prevention, are crucial, and consistency in care is therefore critical. How will that be addressed?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is right to raise those points. The Government are absolutely committed to reducing the number of people with learning disabilities whose deaths might have been preventable had there been different health and care interventions. That is why we set up the learning from deaths programme, and have commissioned an investigation of the issue. We are determined not only to learn from every single one of these tragic and avoidable deaths, but to share that learning with those in trusts up and down the country so that they can take a clear look at what is going on under their noses, and ensure that the terrible incidents that we have seen in the past do not happen again.

The hon. Lady was wise to raise the issue of training. It is important to have specialist practitioners, but it is also important to ensure that all healthcare staff, throughout the country, have the training that they need in order to recognise and support the needs of people with learning disabilities. That is something that we have done very successfully with dementia: we record the number of staff in the country who have received tier 1 and tier 2 training, and we are looking into how we can extend that to address the issues of people with learning disabilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Lisa Cameron

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)]

I have been clear that I want to see far fewer women ending up in prison. We are committed to improving the treatment of female offenders and to putting in place the interventions needed at each stage to help them to turn their lives away from crime.

[Dr Cameron]

I associate myself and my colleagues on these Benches with the Minister’s earlier comments.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice in Scotland has made clear the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling the number of women in prison by consulting on proposals to strengthen the current presumption against short sentences, by continuing to invest in robust community sentences and by investing an additional £1.5 million annually in community justice for women. Will the Minister join me in commending the efforts of the Scottish Government to apply a community-based rehabilitative approach?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Absolutely. We are keen to learn from any experiences in Scotland and elsewhere in the world that are successful in diverting women away from prison. Here in England and Wales, we have awarded £200,000 of grant funding to pilot earlier and more sequenced interventions with the right sort of multi-agency approach, which should see fewer women ending up in prison for short periods.