What a month of contrasts; we have experienced heat waves and thunder storms, celebrated a Royal marriage and mourned the content of the annual report that the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) Programme published on 4th May.
Deborah Coles, Executive Director of INQUEST summarised the report on the INQUEST website https://www.inquest.org.uk/inquest-responds-leder-report and we also heard from Sara Ryan, mother of Connor Sparrowhawk (Connor’s photo is above) hear what she had to say on the BBC Breakfast news:
What does this all have to do with workforce you may ask?……………………….EVERYTHING
In our first regional programme blog last month we told you that “Health Education England (HEE) exists for one reason only: to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement ……………” and that this was not just about the right numbers of staff but also about “skills, values and behaviours, at the right time and in the right place.”
Sustainable workforce development and supply needs to come from an evidence-based foundation, so we were really grateful this month to Professor Ann Gallagher and her team at the International Care Ethics (ICE) Observatory in helping us, our stakeholders, and anyone else with an interest in adding to this.
The LeDeR team told us in their annual report that 7 out of every 8 deaths reviewed were not “adversely effected” by the care they received. What our stakeholders highlighted to us was the fact that when people are on an end of life pathway there is evidence linked to the good care of adults and children, but a lack of evidence linked to what good care and support might look like for people during transition on the same pathway.
The ICE project is titled “End of Life Care Planning for Young People with Learning Disabilities and their Families: the ADVANCE Framework” and Ann has written a blog telling you all about it and how to freely access the report, easy read summary and the toolkit, which you can read at https://idhekss.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/blog-launch-end-of-life-care-planning-for-young-people-with-learning-disabilities-and-their-families-the-advance-framework/
In other news
The ability to share information and communicate in a timely manner has always been key and still remains so to the way the Intellectual Disability programme has been shaped and evolved over the last 5 years. So we are excited to announce some changes that we hope will further help improve the way we communicate with one another:
- Our programme email address has been updated to SouthID@hee.nhs.uk as South is where the programme is based, though we continue to support the London region as well
- Our twitter account has also been updated to reflect the change of our host region to @HEE_SouthID, with this comes an updated programme hashtag #SouthID
- In an exciting development we have also been able to start sharing our updates via LinkedIn – click this link to find the page.
- Our regional stakeholders have very kindly supported the development of an Instagram account that has begun to document and share photos and images from various events and learning opportunities related to the work of the programme – click here to see what has been captured so far @South.ID
- Hopefully if you’re reading this blog you are already aware that we share lots of information via our website idhekss.wordpress.com but you may not know that you can sign also up to get a weekly summary email of the information shared via this site. This means you will never miss any news we have to share. If you want to be added to the mailing list click here
Other things our programme has done this month:
- We have helped facilitate Kent & Medway’s Transforming Care Partnership to run their second action learning set aimed at helping then develop a workforce plan see some picture from the event below and slides packs can be viewed by clicking here.
- We have supported both the South region & London region Learning Disability nursing summits. You can follow the conversations from these events at #ldnursingconversation
- We have been able share the South regional #IDWorkforce data for NHS employed staff (2018) & Non-NHS employed staff (2017), all of which can be found at https://idhekss.wordpress.com/2018/05/23/out-now-south-region-idworkforce-data-for-nhs-2018-non-nhs-2017-southid/
- We have co-facilitated a workshop titled “Intellectual disabilities; a workshop to challenge your perceptions” (click on title to watch) at the Sound of the Student and Trainee Voice 2018 conference with expert consultant Scott Watkin BEM. You can follow the dicussions that took place on social media at #StudentVoiceKSS .
The month ahead;
#LDWeek18
June is always a busy month for the programme, and this year is no different it with Learning Disability Week 2018 between the 18th – 24th June. There are lots events taking place across the region, not just during this week but throughout the month. The focus is on “spread the word about the problems people with a learning disability can face in getting good healthcare in hospital, and how we can change this”. The programme team and some of our stakeholders will be attending and sharing at lots of events and we will update you with what we have learnt in next month’s blog. Of particular importance to us as a programme is the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Learning Disability Community of Practice Conference – see here for further details and how to sign up to attend
If you want to sign up to the weekly update email click here and if you want to get in touch to tell us what you think about this blog or any other related matters contact us at SouthID@hee.nhs.uk
Workforce Development for & with People with Intellectual Disabilities 