Discrimination against people with a learning disability

A recent survey carried out on behalf of Mencap shows that over a third of doctors and nurses think the NHS discriminates against patients with a learning disability, and nearly a half of doctors (including 61% of GPs) consider they receive lower standards of healthcare (1). The 2008 Michael Inquiry into their healthcare reported evidence of appalling examples of discrimination, abuse and neglect across the range of health services (2). The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s 2009 inquiry into the deaths of six patients described “the devastating impact of organisational behaviour which does not adapt to individual needs” (3) The most important insight in the Government's response to the Michael Inquiry, Valuing people now, lies in a foreword that was conspicuously signed by no less than six Secretaries of State (4).

This prominent display of ownership underlines the authority behind a conviction echoed throughout the report - that for people with learning disabilities to enjoy the same opportunities as everyone else means using a human rights based approach.

Last year Doctors for Human Rights cited Valuing people now when it urged the GMC to require that medical students receive human rights education, and was rewarded by the stipulation within Tomorrow's Doctors that graduates be able to “recognise the rights and the equal value of all people and how opportunities for some people may be restricted by others’ perceptions(5)”. Ending discrimination, albeit unconscious, against marginalised groups requires a culture change in medical practice that can only be achieved through formal human rights education.

1. Perceptions of the care and treatment of people with a learning disability in the NHS according to health professionals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Mencap ICM Poll June 2010.

2. Michael J. Healthcare for all. p7. Department of Health. 2008. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/ Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_099255 3. Parliamentary and NHS Ombudsman. Six lives: the provision of public services to people with learning disabilities. Part one, p7. The Stationery Office. 2009. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/ improving-public- service/reports-and-consultations/reports/health/six-lives-the-provision- ofpublic-services-to-people-with-learning-disabilities 4. Department of Health. Valuing people now: a new three-year strategy for people with learning disabilities. p2. Department of Health. 2009. http:// www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/ Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_093377 5. General Medical Council. Tomorrow’s doctors: outcomes and standards for undergraduate medical education. p 26. London: General Medical Council, 2009. http://www.gmc- uk.org/ education/undergraduate/tomorrows_doctors_2009.asp Competing interests: I have specialised in physical healthcare for people with a learning disability for 33 years