Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what specific policy and funding steps they will take to mandate the full implementation of the learning disabilities mortality review programme recommendations.

Learning from lives and deaths reviews (LeDeR) play a vital role in identifying learning from the notified deaths of people with a learning disability and autistic people, and the recommendations made in individual reviews, as well as the annual report, are key drivers for national and local service improvement. LeDeR reviews incorporate more than just the last episode of care before a person’s death, as they also include the key health and social care experiences the person had. The Government remains committed to reviewing every death notified to LeDeR and sharing the learning from these reviews widely to inform change.

There are no plans to mandate aspects of the LeDeR programme. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are held accountable for the care of people with a learning disability through existing governance processes, such as the NHS Operating Framework and annual assessment of ICB delivery. ICBs are expected to have an Executive Lead on LeDeR and NHS England’s national LeDeR policy sets out the clear expectation that ICBs prioritise LeDeR in their delivery plans and produce an annual report on their findings and actions taken.