Secondary Healthcare and Learning Disability
Open Access
- 1 March 2004
- journal article
- other
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Learning Disabilities
- Vol. 8 (1), 30-40
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1469004704041703
Abstract
Many people with learning disabilities live shorter lives and have poorer health than the rest of the population. This results in part from less access to healthcare, and several studies have evaluated ways of improving primary healthcare for this group. Much less attention has been paid to the experiences of people with a learning disability in general hospitals. This exploratory study used consensus development conferences of people with a learning disability, their supporters, family, professionals and managers. It was reported that hospitals frequently failed to communicate with, provide emotional support for, or adapt to the specific needs of patients with a learning disability. Hospital staff noted that community services failed to provide information about patients, and that hospital staff lacked training in communicating with people with a learning disability. Fieldwork identified a range of solutions to deal with these problems, most of which involved incremental changes in hospital and community health procedures.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Valuing Assessments and Reports? The Impact of Valuing People on People with a Learning DisabilityJournal of Integrated Care, 2003
- Mortality and Life Expectancy in Dutch Residential Centres for Individuals with Intellectual Disability, 1991–1995Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 2002
- Learning-disabled people's experience of general hospitalsBritish Journal of Nursing, 1998
- Health gain through health checks: improving access to primary health care for people with intellectual disabilityJournal of Intellectual Disability Research, 1997
- Assessing general practitioners' care of adult patients with learning disability: case-control study.Quality and Safety in Health Care, 1996
- Stigmatisation of people with learning disabilities in general hospitalsBritish Journal of Nursing, 1995
- SURVIVAL IN MENTAL RETARDATIONMental Handicap Research, 1994
- Meeting the needs for health services of persons with mental retardation living in the community.American Journal of Public Health, 1990
- The Life Expectancy of Profoundly Handicapped People with Mental RetardationNew England Journal of Medicine, 1990
- The NIH Consensus-Development Program and the Assessment of Health-Care TechnologiesNew England Journal of Medicine, 1980