LeDeR is a national service improvement programme for people over the age of 18 years with a diagnosis of a learning disability and from February 2022 LeDeR also includes autistic people both with and without a diagnosis of a learning disability.
Within West Yorkshire LeDeR is a consolidated function that is hosted by Bradford place, the team consists of a Local Area Contact (LAC), Senior Reviewer, Reviewers and a team administrator who undertake reviews on behalf of our five places within West Yorkshire.
A LeDeR review looks at key episodes of health and social care the person received that may have been relevant to their overall health outcomes. We look for areas that need improvement and also areas of good practice. NHSE use these examples of good practice to share across the country. This helps reduce inequalities in care for people with a learning disability and autistic people and helps to reduce the number of people dying sooner than they should.
The 2022 national LeDeR annual report published by NHS England in November 2023 in partnership with Kings College, London continues to be a reminder of the significant health inequalities faced by people with a learning disability and autistic people. Our West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board LeDeR annual report for 2023-24 is available to read and download here. For the easy read version of the report, you can access this here.
LeDeR learning event
We held our second LeDeR learning event on 4th July at Cedar Court, Huddersfield bringing together people from across West Yorkshire for this system wide event which saw over 60 attendees. We were joined by our Senior Manager Health Inequalities and Regional Coordinator for Leder NEY, NHS England.
The day consisted of presentations, group priorities work, networking and market stalls and feedback from our Learning event in December 2023. We have received positive feedback and people welcomed the opportunity to network with colleague and gain insight into some of the work happening locally and across our five places.
LeDeR Resource Bank
Around 50% of deaths of people with a learning disability are avoidable. The NHS and our partners are working hard to change this. The LedeR Resource Bank contains materials to address some of the main causes of early death for people with a learning disability.
This resource bank may be of use to health and care professionals supporting people with a learning disability or people who are autistic with their health or care.
Learning Disabilities Standards
Across all of our places in West Yorkshire we have higher numbers of adults with a learning disability receiving long-term support from Local Authorities compared to the rest of England. We want to make access to healthcare easier and one of the ways we are working to improve the experience of care for people with learning disabilities is through the national Learning Disability Improvement Standards. First published in 2018, the Standards guide hospital Trusts in how to support and respect people with learning disabilities. All Trusts in West Yorkshire are expected to publish performance against the Standards on an annual basis. Our Learning Disabilities Improvement Standards project will support Trusts to work collaboratively to meet the requirements of the Standards by the end of this year, 2023 / 2024.
Included in the requirements is that all care providers consider as part of their digital strategy how they will apply a digital flag to identify service users who have a learning disability and / or autism. This will help people arriving for care to have their needs recognised and met from the beginning of their treatment journey.
You can find out more about the national Learning Disability Improvement Standards here.
This work is carried out through the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Programme and is championed by the leadership team because of its importance across all of our services.
There’s more information about the work we are doing to develop meaningful support across our places for people with learning disabilities in our strategy document here and an easy read version here.