Health checks and people with learning disabilities
Abstract
This article addresses the need for health checks for people with learning disabilities as a proven route to identifying and tackling health inequalities, what health checks should look like (covering physical and mental health) and how they should be followed up, and how practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) can implement health checks, involving people with learning disabilities and family carers and drawing on the expertise of community learning disability teams. Experience from Wales and England of offering health checks is described, and some key learning points are drawn out. In particular we recommend the appointment of a strategic health facilitator to lead the introduction of health checks and to ensure that the results are used to improve the health and health care of the population of people with learning disabilities.
Keywords
Citation
Cobb, J., Giraud‐Saunders, A. and Kerr, M. (2008), "Health checks and people with learning disabilities", Tizard Learning Disability Review, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 38-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/13595474200800028
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited