Changing Our Lives is developing a Quality of Health toolkit which will explain how to support teams of people with disabilities to review health services.

The toolkit will contain training resources for reviewing teams and examples of best practice in co-production. Part of this work will involve us piloting Quality of Health reviews in four areas across England.

These pilots will focus on the experiences of people with learning disabilities and autism. If you want to find out more download our flyer or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We have used the Quality of Health Principles to carry out reviews in Sandwell of dentists, pharmacists, the general hospital and GP surgeries. As part of the review process we trained GPs and the receptionist and administration teams of local surgeries in an awareness of earning disabilities and accessible communication. The team of reviewers checked how these services supported people with learning disabilities using various review methods including, interviews, observations and even mystery shopping! In the next couple of months we will be carrying out audits of a selection of Sandwell opticians and pharmacies. We will also be training local dentists in how to make reasonable adjustments in their service to support people with learning disabilities.

On 19th October Changing Our Lives held a Quality of Health Conference at the Midlands Arts Centre. The conference showcased the Quality of Health Principles; a set of best practice standards that have been developed by people with learning disabilities in partnership with their peers with physical and sensory disabilities, people on the autistic spectrum, people with mental health issues and older people. Our self advocates used factual but fun 'roving reporter' films and presentations to tell health providers and commissioners what people who are 'vulnerable' expect in terms of person centred healthcare.  They successfully demonstrated the power of user led audits and the positive impact these have on the health experiences of people with learning disabilities.

The Principles have been used by people with learning disabilities as the basis for audits of health services including a general hospital, mental health services, GP practices, pharmacies and dentists. We highlighted the positive changes that have taken place in these healthcare services for people with learning disabilities as a result of the audits.

The conference was well attended by key senior figures from health and social care from across the West Midlands and a live twitter feed helped to highlight key issues.  Professor Steve Field, Chair of the NHS Future Forum and also the National Inclusion Health Board, closed the conference saying, "Your presentations were wonderful and gave me great hope. The work you are doing is great and is influencing the national commissioning board at the highest level. The Principles will be included in NHS contracts for 2013".

You can view photos, download a the presentations and read the speaker's biographies below.

Over recent years, the deaths of people with learning disabilities in health services has been bought to public attention in reports such as Mencap's "Death by Indifference: 74 and Counting". Similarly, the Department of Health's recent report into the abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View highlights the need for better commissioning and monitoring of health services, and stresses the importance of user led auditing as one way the quality of services can be checked.

On the 16th of October Richard Johnson and Jessica Bromley presented at the 'Better Dental Services for People with Learning Disabilities' Conference in Birmingham. The conference was hosted by the Improving Health and Lives: Learning Disabilities Observatory and the National Development Team for Inclusion. It was attended by professionals from around the country including Dentists and Healthcare Commissioners. Richard and Jessica presented the main themes from their recent audit of a high street dentist and a specialist dental service. The professionals were particularly interested in how they could make their information more accessible for people with learning disabilities and have asked to be kept informed on how future audits develop.

Throughout June and July, Gemma Caffrey and Sarah Bentley have successfully trained 20 members of the administration teams based within the medical centres at Cape Hill, Smethwick and Carters Green in West Bromwich. This training provided a fun opportunity for the staff to test their knowledge (with a series of competitive and closely fought quizzes!) as well as helping the teams to think about how they can improve the support they offer to their patients who have a learning disability.
The training was extremely well received with positive feedback for the trainers such as 'improved my understanding' and 'I learned so much about the best way of communicating with people with learning disabilities'. Staff later commented that the sessions had provided them with many ideas and recommended that other staff teams would benefit from this training. Both medical centres are part of a Changing Our Lives pilot scheme to audit the quality of GP services against the Quality of Health Principles. Changing Our Lives are now going to work closely with the surgery teams to develop a range of photographic resources and easy read information for the surgery.