Easy Read: Research report
We asked people to tell us about their healthcare experiences for people with learning disabilities and autism.
We asked people with learning disabilities and autism to tell us about their healthcare experiences.
We asked their support teams to tell us about their healthcare experiences.
We asked their doctors to tell us about their healthcare experiences.
We found out lots of different things.
We found out that student doctors do not receive any about how to treat people with a learning disability.
Student doctors are people who are studying to be doctors.
We found out student doctors only get a little bit of training about making reasonable adjustments for people with a learning disability or autism. Reasonable adjustments are changes that can help make a service accessible for people.
The doctors we spoke to said that this sort of training is important.
Lots of the doctors we spoke to said they would like more training so that their patients can get the most out of their annual health checks.
Most of the doctors we spoke to said they would like a short training session from someone with a learning disability or autism about how they could best treat people with a learning disability or autism.
We also found that some people with learning disabilities and autism do not feel listened to by their doctor.
Some people with learning disabilities and autism said they do not feel like they are treated with care or concern.
Over half of the people with learning disabilities who we asked said the doctor did not make any reasonable adjustments for them.
Reasonable adjustments are changes that can help make a service accessible for people.
Just over half of the doctors we spoke to said that one problem was patients, support workers and GPs not talking to each other.
Only half of the people we asked felt involved in their healthcare.
Some doctors said they do not have time to make reasonable adjustments.
Some doctors said they did not know how to make reasonable adjustments.
A lot of doctors we asked said they would like training on how to make reasonable adjustments.
We would like you to read our report and share it with other people. The more people who work in social care and health know how important it is, the more they can do to be learning disability and autism friendly.
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