Support to young people with learning disabilities from primary care

Lots of people with learning disabilities have more health issues than the general population and often have unmet health needs that can impact on their quality of life. In order to identify people with learning disabilities who may need reasonable adjustments making to the support they receive from health services, GP practices have a learning disabilities register. This is an all-age register which identifies people with learning disabilities in the practice. Please see our easy read information which can tell you more about the learning disabilities register.

Once people are identified on the learning disabilities register, one of the reasonable adjustments the practice will make is to offer the person an annual health check every year when they become 14. This helps to identify health issues early, aims to reduce health inequalities and also gets the young person used to visiting their local GP practice. To find out more see the easy read annual health check leaflet.

Professionals working with children and young people can help promote and raise awareness of the learning disabilities register and annual health checks with the young people and carers they are working with. Please read our Top Tips document for ways to do this.