Extracts from Parliamentary proceedings - Feb 12

Lord Touhig (Lab): My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)

My Lords, the employment rate for disabled people stands at 53.2%, having increased by 9.8 percentage points over the past six years. The employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people has fallen by 5.6 percentage points over the same period.

Lord Touhig: I welcome, as I am sure the whole House does, the improvement the Minister just told us about, but there has been no increase whatever in the number of autistic people in work—for the last 10 years. Just 16 in every 100 people who are autistic are in full-time employment. Addressing the lack of understanding about Autism across business and industry is key to trying to solve this problem. Will the Government establish an information hub, providing employers with support and information to improve recruitment of autistic people? Could I tempt her to be even more daring and perhaps consider creating an Autism accreditation scheme so that participating companies get full recognition for the efforts they put in?

Baroness Stedman-Scott: The noble Lord makes very accurate and real points. I spoke to the National Autistic Society this morning. Some 16% of autistic adults are in work and 32% of them are in some kind of paid work, but the real statistic is that 77% of unemployed autistic adults want to work. The noble Lord rightly pointed out that we must get to that figure. The disability hub is a great idea. I will go back to the department with yet another idea—their eyes roll now when I walk in, but I will do it. I will not be put off by that. I can confirm that the Government are also working with the Supported Business Alliance and the British Association for Supported Employment to help them develop a new quality mark for supportive businesses and develop a long-term element of access to work to continue the support. However, there is no doubt that we have a lot more to do and I will take both those ideas back to the department...

To read all the exchanges, CLICK HERE

Written statement on Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage): Government response to the third annual learning disabilities mortality review (LeDeR) report.

Following the publication of the third annual report from the learning disabilities mortality review (LeDeR) programme on 21 May 2019, and the statement I made at the time, I am today pleased to be publishing the Government’s response to that report. A copy of the response can be found at: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statements/

The LeDeR programme was established in 2015 to help reduce early deaths and health inequalities for people with a learning disability by supporting local areas in England to review the deaths of people with a learning disability and to ensure that the learning from these reviews lead to improved health and care services. The programme is led by the University of Bristol and commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of NHS England.

The programme has found that the quality of care offered to people with a learning disability sometimes falls short of the standards we expect. The existence of the LeDeR programme demonstrates our ongoing commitment to ensure that people with learning disabilities can access the best possible quality care and support.

The third annual LeDeR report covers the period 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2018, with a particular focus on deaths in 2018. From 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2018, 4,302 “in-scope” deaths were notified to the LeDeR programme. The majority of these, 2,926, were notified in 2018. In 71 of the cases reviewed, people received care that fell so far short of expected good practice that it significantly impacted on their well-being or directly contributed to their cause of death.

Based on the evidence from completed LeDeR reviews, the third annual report made twelve recommendations for the education, health and care system. As I said at the time of the LeDeR report’s publication, it is essential that we take appropriate actions to learn from the issues raised by the LeDeR programme. In the Government response, we have set out how we and our system partners are taking action to deliver the improvements to services that will make a real and significant difference to people's lives. Actions identified relate to reviewing guidance; publishing new data on the progress of LeDeR reviews and sharing best practice.

In November, we set out our most significant action in response to the third annual LeDeR report, when we committed to introducing the Oliver McGowan mandatory training in learning disability and Autism for all health and social care staff. This training is named after Oliver McGowan, in recognition of his story, his family’s tireless campaigning for better training for staff, and to remember him and others whose lives were cut tragically short.

The Government remain committed to gather learning from deaths reviewed under the LeDeR process ensuring that measures are put in place to address the persistent health inequalities that people with learning disabilities experience. Since the start of the LeDeR programme, nearly 3,200 reviews have been completed and over 2,700 are currently in progress. Although increases in the number of reviews carried out is welcome, we acknowledge that the pace with which reviews are conducted needs to increase further.

The LeDeR programme was introduced to ensure that local, evidence-based action is taken to improve support for people with a learning disability, and while we clearly have a great deal further to go to improve outcomes, we must continue to build on the momentum of the past five years and work together to learn from the past. Our response, published today, sets out how we will do that.