The Freedom of reasonable adjustments project was formally launched in June 2021, ahead of Learning Disabilities Awareness Week 2021.

The story so far…

Launch

The first project group meeting brought together representatives from system partners including Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network (KSS AHSN), Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership, and voluntary and third sector partners including Active Prospects: a provider of support for people with learning disabilities, mental and physical health needs and My Social Time: a virtual social engagement forum for young adults with learning disabilities.

Communications and engagement

During Learning Disabilities Awareness Week 2021, the following article was circulated via the KSS AHSN Twitter account (https://kssahsn.net/news/improving-health-check-access-for-people-with-learning-disabilities/). As a result, we were approached by a GP Federation in Surrey who are looking to improve their current Annual Health Check (AHC) pathway. We have also been approached by two sister AHSNs who have identified local needs relating to AHCs.

Subsequent project group meetings have helped to strengthen the relationships within the project group and through the combined knowledge of the project group we have:

• Stratified GP practices with high/medium/low AHC completion rates through the creation of a data dashboard. Members of the project team provided local insights into the factors affecting AHC completion rates. We used Learning Disabilities health check scheme data made available by NHS Digital and utilised data visualisation tools (Tableau) to depict trends
• Established a need for a ‘menu of resources’ that clinicians completing AHCs can signpost patients to ahead of/following their AHC.
• Recognised other related projects and key stakeholders to engage with including the Surrey Heartlands Digital & Learning Disabilities Blended Programme. Surrey Heartlands has commenced work as an early adopter of the NHS’s Reasonable Adjustment Flag.
• Identified local people with Learning Disabilities to engage with.
  Next steps over the coming months?

Over the coming months we are planning the following next steps:

1. Promote the project and recruit service users for user surveys/interviews from the Surrey Peoples Group. The Surrey Peoples Group is for people with lived experience of learning disability, autism and acquired brain injury. Their goal is to become a Surrey wide user-led network where voices are heard, and they connect to make real change. To do this the group is supported by Pro-Active Community ambassadors. They meet monthly via Zoom and have a range of guest speakers on important and topical issues, that affect people living with disabilities.
2. Identify & engage with GP practices in Sussex. Further engagement with GP practices in Surrey.
3. Development & rollout of interviews/questionnaires to better understand
   a) GPs / health professionals

• Training needs & gaps (including staff proactiveness with reasonable adjustments)
• Information needed from voluntary partners to improve quality of AHCs
• Types of resources they would like to signpost to

         b) Patients / service users / carers & parents

• Types of resources they would like to be signposted to
• Levels of digital confidence
• If/how they choose their preferred appointment format
• If they use care passports
• If they access existing life skills programmes
• What matters to them as individuals/families

This is with a view to establishing a baseline across other relevant data elements (both quantitative and qualitative) and to inform evaluation themes from the outset

4) Co-design and development of Health and Wellbeing MOT, signposting menu, and training materials based on outcomes from interviews/questionnaires. Feedback from Health care professionals and patients / service users / carers & parents.

5) GP Awareness campaign & training for staff

6) Pilot & Evaluation

What have you learned so far, either from the successes you have had or from where things haven’t gone to plan?

There is a large amount of work taking place in the Learning Disabilities space, especially as the NHS Long Term Plan aims to improve people’s health by making sure they receive timely and appropriate health checks, while improving the level of awareness and understanding across the NHS of how best to support them as patients. Therefore to reduce duplication of efforts the project group worked together to identify other similar projects and key stakeholders at local, regional and national level.

What could others learn from your experience of working with a range of stakeholders and collaborating across boundaries (geographical, professional, sector) – including what is working well and any challenges you have faced?

• The importance of transparency early on i.e. openly recognising any risks, challenges and issues: This has helped manage ours and project members expectations. Due to system pressures and resourcing limitations the project launch date was slightly pushed back and therefore initial timelines were adjusted to accommodate this. Timelines have been further adjusted as we have identified local priorities that are helping to shape the project and sense-checked. To that end, we also have a standing agenda item titled ‘Sense-checking’
• You can still have a ‘collaborative vibe’ without brown paper and post-its: In the absence of a shared physical space, brown paper and post-its, we have utilised the gift of technology as our very own ‘reasonable adjustment’ by employing tools like Jamboards. to gather insights and canvas ideas. We have two standing agenda items, namely ‘Identifying’ identifying interdependencies and any blind spots and ‘Generating’ to focus on ideation.
• The importance of safe collaborative spaces must not be understated: At the start of the project, we made sure we acknowledged the project launch delay in the spirit of transparency, whilst inviting contributions from project team members to express and reaffirm our respective motivations in making this work. As the project has progressed, our group has been growing in trust and we continue to afford ourselves the necessary psychological safety to speak freely and openly in the spirit of collaboration and co-production. Our next critical step is to do the same and more with service users and health, care and wellbeing service providers

How can the wider community get involved?

To get involved in the Freedom of reasonable adjustments project please email George Anibaba (george.anibaba@nhs.net) & Catherine Young (catherine.young17@nhs.net).