Hospitals urged to prioritise people with learning disabilities, as NHS struggles with backlog due to pandemic

A charity is calling on hospitals to prioritise people with learning disabilities, after MPs revealed NHS waiting lists in England have hit record levels.

While a cross-party House of Commons Health Committee has warned more than 5.8 million patients are waiting for treatment nationwide, with 300,000 waiting more than a year, Mencap is concerned people with a learning disability could miss out on urgent diagnosis and treatment because of “barriers” accessing care.

The disability charity warns people with a learning disability faced “serious barriers” accessing healthcare even before COVID and is urging the government to commit to more investment in training disability nurses.

Dan Scorer, head of policy and public affairs of Mencap, said: “It’s worrying to see waiting lists at record levels, particularly for people with a learning disability who faced serious barriers accessing healthcare even before COVID.

“Before the pandemic, people with a learning disability were already more likely to die avoidably and died far younger than the general population.”

According to NHS Digital, on average, the life expectancy of women with a learning disability is 18 years shorter than for women in the general population and for men with a learning disability, it is 14 years shorter than for men in the general population.

“We know this includes a huge shortage of learning disability nurses and the government must commit more investment in training and retaining staff. This crucial role is key to ensuring people with a learning disability get the healthcare support they need,“ says Mr Scorer.

Tackling the backlog is “an unquantifiable challenge” states a report published by the cross-party House of Commons Health Committee today, it highlights the widespread staff shortages in both health and social care. In health care, the report notes there are shortages in nearly every specialty.

Committee chair Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative MP and former Health Secretary said the NHS was short of 93,000 workers and there was "no sign of any plan to address this" by the government.

He said: "Far from tackling the backlog, the NHS will be able to deliver little more than day to day firefighting unless the government wakes up to the scale of the staffing crisis facing the NHS, and urgently develops a long-term plan to fix the issue.”

’More funding is needed for social care to enable more people to leave hospital’

The committee report also highlighted how public health, social care and workforce were not adequately accounted for in the Spending Review.

The Health Foundation states the decision to maintain the public health grant ‘does not reverse the 24 per cent real-terms cut to the grant since 2015/16’ and fell ‘well short of what is required.’

It estimated ‘an additional £1.3bn a year is required by 2024/25’. The Health Foundation described social care as having ‘lost out’ and the settlement was ‘barely enough to meet future demands, let alone address the challenges social care faces.’

Mr Scorer added: “While social care workers are already going above and beyond to ensure people with a learning disability get the support they have a right to, there are huge staff shortages and they are trying to do this in a sector under immense pressure.

“The workforce, and the people they support, need the government to take urgent action by developing a comprehensive workforce plan that properly recognises the highly-skilled role that the care workforce provides and backing this up with sufficient additional funding to enable this to take place. This will provide the vital bedrock on which people with a learning disability?can receive the high-quality support they need and deserve.”

Anita Charlesworth, director of research and the REAL Centre at the Health Foundation is also urging the government to invest more money into social care.

She said: “To get back to the 18 weeks standard for waiting times across the NHS would require almost 19,000 more nurses and over 4,000 more doctors, but there is no staffing plan for the NHS.

“The government has committed a total of £10 billion to clearing the backlog, but this is considerably less than the £17bn we’ve estimated could be needed to meet the backlog in this parliament.

“We urgently need to see more action to boost services in primary care and the community to help prevent people from becoming acutely ill in the first place. And more funding is needed for social care to enable more people to leave hospital promptly and keep them well at home.”