People with a learning disability often have poorer physical and mental health than other people and may face barriers to accessing health and care to keep them healthy. Too many people with a learning disability are dying earlier than they should, many from things which could have been treated or prevented.
The learning from deaths of people with a learning disability (LeDeR) programme was set up as a service improvement programme to look at why people are dying and what we can do to change services locally and nationally to improve the health of people with a learning disability and reduce health inequalities. By finding out more about why people died we can understand what needs to be changed to make a difference to people’s lives.
In a LeDeR review someone who is trained to carry out reviews, usually someone who is clinical or has a social work background, looks at the person’s life and the circumstances that led up to their death and from the information they have makes recommendations to the local commissioning system about changes that could be made locally to help improve services for other people with a learning disability locally. They look at the GPs records and social care and hospital records (if relevant) and speak to family members about the person who has died to find out more about them and their life experiences.
For more information on the LeDar programme:
Anyone can notify a death to the LeDeR programme and the more deaths we are aware of the more accurate the information we have will be.
Information on how to report the death of a person with a learning disability to LeDeR (age 4 years and over) can be found here:https://leder.nhs.uk/report
If you have any further questions please contact BSW LeDeR Email: bswccg.leder@nhs.net
