GPs must take more time and care over assessing the needs of people with learning disabilities says the Royal College of General Practitioners in the wake of a scathing report which has provoked a major review of the care of vulnerable people.
On Tuesday this week, the Health and Local Government Ombudsmen criticised the care and management of six people with learning difficulties and concluded that these failings directly contributed to the deaths of two patients.
Today in a statement the RCGP said it was “dismayed” by the report and says its findings are consistent with the conclusions of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in 2008 and the Sir Jonathan Michael’s Independent Inquiry into the Access to Health Care in 2008.
“A strong message for GPs across the country is we should be spending more time with people with learning disabilities. Ten minutes is not long enough to assess them,” the RCGP says.
The RCGP Learning Disabilities task force says that GPs need to “go the extra mile” in listening and providing sensitive care to this vulnerable group and their families.
GPs need to make reasonable adjustments to support the delivery of equal treatment, as required by the Disability Discrimination Act. Adjustments are not always made to allow for communication problems, difficulty in understanding (cognitive impairment), or the anxieties and preferences of individuals concerning their treatment.
The 10 recommendations from the Ombudsmen’s report have been agreed by the Department of Health in its report “Valuing People Now”, but the RCGP says, “neither the resources nor timescales are explicit enough.
"We believe that people with learning disabilities should be treated with care and dignity both in primary and secondary care.”
The RCGP says its curriculum published in 2007 contains a section on the care of people with learning disabilities, which ensures GPs have their skills and knowledge assessed at the end of their training.