Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make a statement on the learning disabilities mortality review. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a certain amount of chuntering from a sedentary position. The Secretary of State has been with us, but Minister Caroline Dinenage will answer the urgent question, and we look forward to her answer.

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

The Government are absolutely committed to reducing the number of people with learning disabilities whose deaths may have been preventable and have pledged to do so with different health and care interventions. The learning disabilities mortality review programme was established in June 2015; it was commissioned by NHS England to support local areas in England to review the deaths of people with a learning disability. Its aims were to identify common themes and learning points, and to provide support to local areas in their development of action plans to take forward the lessons learned.

On 4 May, the University of Bristol published its first annual report of the LeDeR programme, covering the period from July 2016 to November 2017. The report included 1,311 deaths that were notified to the programme and set out nine recommendations based on the 103 reviews completed in this period. The Government welcome the report’s recommendations and support NHS England’s funding of the programme for a further year at £1.4 million. We are already taking steps to address the concerns raised, but the early lessons from the programme will continue to feed into our work, and that of our partners, to reduce premature mortality and improve the quality of services for people with learning disabilities.