Treat Me Well: Youssef's story

Welcome everybody to a brand new era!

This year Mencap has a brand new campaign, called Treat Me Well, which is all about how people with a learning disability are treated when they go to hospital.

Treat me well officially launched on Thursday 15 February. There were lots of different events across the country to celebrate and promote the launch of the campaign, including an event which I attended at The Royal College of Nursing in London.

Lots of people attended this event, including people from local and national Mencap, people from learning disability groups, as well as learning disability nurses and health professionals.

There were also several speakers, many of which that I really liked, such as Cecilia Anim CBE (Royal College of Nursing), Oonagh Smyth (Mencap), Candace Millar (Skills for Health) and Dr Jean O'Hara ( NHS England).

I was also really proud of my fellow Mencap colleague Lloyd Page. I thought he was inspirational and very confident.

As part of the event, there were also a few workshops, some of which I attended and supported my fellow colleagues in. These included 'Local campaigning', ‘Know your rights ’, and 'Learning disability training for healthcare professionals'. In these workshops I spoke about reasonable adjustments and what they mean; I asked people what they thought reasonable adjustments were and we discussed this.

There were ‘Treat Me Well’ launch parties all over the country, I also attended events at Barnet Mencap and also at National Centre for Royal Mencap. I met many people at these events, and gave out leaflets and information, as well as inviting them to sign up to support the campaign.

I really enjoyed attending the events and being part of the bigger picture of the campaign, because I feel learning disability issues, especially around health, are very important. I feel very proud to be a part of Treat Me Well, and to have been involved in its launch.

Hear more from Youssef on Twitter: @YAbidat