Our team

In the learning disability and autism team we aim to do whatever we can to help people who have a learning disability and or are autistic to live their best possible lives, access good quality healthcare, be safe in hospital settings and experience equity of services. In order to do this there are a number of strands of activity, some of which are clinical, and others are not.

We are part of the adult health and care team, but we provide support for people with a learning disability and or are autistic of all ages. We also work closely with our children and young people (CYP) team and local authorities as well as other system partners/teams.

We provide a number of statutory functions including:

  • Local area emergency protocols
  • Care and treatment reviews
  • Care, education and treatment reviews
  • Learning from the lives and deaths of people with a learning disability or are autistic (LeDeR)
  • Quality oversight visits (QoV)
  • Commissioning adult autism assessment
  • CYP autism assessments
  • Dynamic support database/register (DSD/DSR)

Other team functions include:

  • Care and accommodation
  • Health inequalities
  • Annual health checks
  • Commissioning
  • CYP autism projects
  • Data, quality and performance
  • Governance
  • Communication, advocacy and co-production

Priorities for the team are taken from the NHS Long Term plan - NHS Long Term Plan » Learning disability and autism

Priorities include:

  • Tackling the causes of morbidity and preventable deaths in people with a learning disability and autistic people
  • Supporting children and young people who are autistic, or awaiting autism diagnosis
  • Commissioning adult autism assessment providers and support including pre and post diagnostic support
  • Improve community-based support so that people can live lives of their choosing in homes and not hospitals, reducing reliance on specialist hospitals

Debbie leads the senior leadership team within the learning disability team.

Debbie's role is to ensure that there is strong leadership and support in place to ensure a resilient and happy workforce. Debbie also holds responsibility for oversight that we are commissioning the right services to meet the needs of our population and to check that what we do commission is of good quality.

Debbie is the delegated Local Area Contact (LAC) for LeDeR reviews and therefore responsible for ensuring we are identifying any learning and improvements that can be made as a system to prevent avoidable deaths.

Starting in post in February 2024.

Emma leads the performance and assurance elements of the team focussing on people in a hospital bed and identifying care and accommodation for people when they are returning to their home in the community.

Emma works with both the NHS and independent providers to ensure people only remain in hospital when they need to.

Cath leads on the governance, project management and children and young people autism projects, oversight and annual health checks. Working with our adult autism assessment provider and responsible for some of our reporting to NHS England, partners and ICB and autism complaints. Cath also leads on our risk identification. 

Lisa leads the LeDeR team and the health inequalities manager for the learning disability and autism team. Lisa works with the LeDeR reviewers and Debbie to ensure that they are identifying and implementing learning and improvement across the system to avoid preventable deaths. Her role also involves working with experts by experience, carers, professionals and various teams to improve access to health care, helping to reduce health inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities and autistic people. 

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