Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that every acute hospital employs a learning disability liaison nurse.

The Equality Act 2010 exists to protect people with disabilities from discrimination. All National Health Service providers including acute hospitals have a duty to promote disability equality.

The requirement for acute hospitals to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for people with learning disabilities is normally included in commissioner contracts and compliance measured as part of the contract management role/process. Trusts are held to account through this mechanism.

Learning Disability Liaison Nurses are proven to improve the quality of services for people with learning disabilities in acute hospitals, and are an important way of demonstrating compliance with the requirement.

The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) approach to inspecting trusts ensures that the trust has made appropriate adjustments to meet the needs of service users, as outlined in the Key Line Of Enquiry for ‘Responsive’ in the appendix to the acute hospital handbook, available on the CQC’s website. Appropriate adjustments specifically include provision for the care of patients with learning disabilities.

The Government’s Mandate to NHS England sets out our ambitions for the health service, which include an objective that NHS England ensures clinical commissioning groups work with local authorities to ensure that vulnerable people, particularly those with learning disabilities and autism, receive safe, appropriate, high quality care. NHS England sets out how it will achieve the objectives in the Mandate in its 2014-15 – 2016-17 business plan. The Government will hold NHS England to account for its achievement.