North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has backed calls for learning disability and Autism training to be made mandatory for all hospital staff.
Speaking in today’s Debate on the petition ‘Make Learning Disability training mandatory for hospital staff’, which received 5,654 signatures, Mr Isherwood said staff are currently not equipped to deliver the level of care required by the learning disabled population, and stressed that the Paul Ridd Foundation & Mencap Cymru recommend that all hospital staff working in a role which contributes to the health outcomes of people with a learning disability or autism should have the proposed training.
However, Mr Isherwood highlighted that the regulation of Health professionals - as opposed to Social work professionals - is a matter reserved to the UK Government under the Government of Wales Act, which means that the Welsh Government could find itself in breach if it introduced a mandatory requirement for training of health professionals, but stated that the Welsh Government could instead adopt the approach consequently taken in Paul Davies’ defeated Autism (Wales) Bill, and make suitable Learning Disability or Autism training available for Health Professionals.
Speaking in the Chamber, he said:
“The good news, however, is that yesterday, following public consultation, the UK Government announced its intention to introduce mandatory learning disability and autism training, and its commitment to work with all professional bodies and the Devolved Administrations to agree a common core curriculum.
“The estimated Learning Disabled Population in Wales of 70,000 people are at a greater risk of physical & mental ill health; have a lower standard of health and a greater risk of developing poorer health; are twice as likely to access secondary care as an emergency; and die on average decades before the general population.
“38% of their deaths in hospital are avoidable – more than 4 times the rate of the general population – with hundreds more dying of avoidable deaths in secondary care – yet hospital staff do not receive focused learning disability training and are therefore not equipped to deliver the level of care required.
“Mencap Cymru and the Paul Ridd Foundation are therefore right to call for mandatory Learning Disability training for hospital staff- and to highlight the result of the Bangor University MSc research, funded by Mencap Cymru, which supported the hypothesis “that improvements were seen in the attitudes held by hospital staff members towards patients with learning disabilities, following their participation in the Learning Disability awareness sessions”.
He added: “The nature of an individual’s learning disability varies widely and will affect the kind of support they may require.
“As I am told daily, by people with direct lived experience – the real experts – we must ensure that the Learning Disabled and Autism Communities are given a direct role in the design and delivery of services, moving beyond awareness to understanding, acceptance and empowerment.
“In other words, instead of making them fit into a model designed by people who don’t think like them, we must become more flexible in the delivery of services and see the world through their eyes.
“As the Paul Ridd Foundation and Mencap state “we need more than E-Learning, content and training materials should be co-produced with people with a learning disability or Autism and their families, unconscious bias and implicit attitudes need to be addressed, and the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and Equality Act (2010) must also be central to any training. And we must remember that the Equality Act 2010 “requires that service providers must think ahead and take steps to address barriers that impede disabled people. In doing this, it is a good idea to consider the range of disabilities that your actual or potential service users might have. You should not wait until a disabled person experiences difficulties using a service”.
