Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to measure, monitor, and publish national statistics on the life expectancy gap for people with a learning disability following the conclusion of the national LeDeR annual report; and through what formal mechanism future evidence-based national recommendations will be made to address avoidable early mortality.

Following the conclusion of the national Learning from Lives and Deaths – People with a Learning Disability and Autistic People (LeDeR) annual report, data will be incorporated into a new patient-level dataset. This will bring together data on the health outcomes of people with a learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Down syndrome and autistic people in England. Using the General Practice Extraction Service, it will aim to address limitations of current data sources and link with wider datasets such as hospital episodes and mental health activity. This will provide a more comprehensive picture of disparities and inform targeted local and national solutions. We are committed to publication of this dataset and will share next steps in due course.

There are clear expectations of local systems to improve outcomes for people with a learning disability and governance through existing frameworks, including to ensure they consider and act on LeDeR findings. Each integrated care board (ICB) has a duty to reduce health inequalities, including addressing avoidable and premature mortality. Each ICB is also expected to have an executive lead for learning disability and autism, who supports the board in addressing health inequalities, as well as an executive lead on LeDeR, who oversees prioritisation of LeDeR reviews and produces local annual reports. Existing expectations on local health and care systems to review deaths, act on LeDeR findings and address health inequalities remain the same.