Stamping out health inequalities for people with a learning disability

Our Learning Disability Helpline offers guidance on a range of issues, including healthcare concerns and queries, as well as onward referral for legal advice and support. 

There were over 8,600 enquiries made to our helpline in England over the 12 months to 31st March 2023, and our information and advice webpages had over 404,000 hits in the year to October 31st 2023.  

Our HealthUnlocked online community platform allows families with shared experiences to come together for peer support.

We campaign to get as many people as possible on the learning disability register . Not enough people with a learning disability are on the learning disability register, especially in Black and Asian communities (1). Only 347,840 people were on the learning disability register in England in 2022/23.

We have reached more people with a learning disability and their families in Black and Asian communities. We worked with community groups and produced materials in languages other than English. We also promoted the register in pharmacies and targeted communications at staff working in GP surgeries to encourage them to promote it to patients. We need better data from the NHS so we can target our resources more accurately. 

Our Homes not hospitals campaign helps the thousands of people in the UK with a learning disability who are being detained in inpatient assessment treatment units (ATUs) receive the care and suitable housing support they need in their communities.

We funded £177,000 to Access Social Care (FY 2022/23) to provide legal support for families (2), supporting 13 new families and 21 existing families to get expert legal help in their fight to get a loved one released (3).

There are sadly still over 2,000 people being detained across England (4), Northern Ireland (5) and Wales (6).

We’ve inspired ground-breaking change through the introduction of Oliver McGowan training, which ensures NHS service providers and staff have the required knowledge to provide adequate support for people with a learning disability or autism .

Our Treat Me Well campaign aimed to transform how the NHS treats people with a learning disability.

Focusing on finding solutions to healthcare inequalities in hospitals, and bringing about practical changes, so people with a learning disability always get the treatment they need and the equal access to healthcare they deserve. 

Rachel’s Voice provides access to legal support for families of people with a learning disability who have died avoidably in a health or care setting.

Along with our partners at Fieldfisher, we’re funding this service with the aim of supporting 50-60 families over a 3-year period. The service will cover signposting to relevant services and information; instruction on how to handle and what to expect with inquests and hospital mistreatment cases; requesting access to inquests when they have not happened or have been denied; legal representation. 

Evidence suggests that mental health problems may also be higher in people with a learning disability than in those without a learning disability (7). Almost 1 in 3 participants (31.7%) in Mencap’s Big Learning Disability Survey in 2022 reported that they had felt lonely and over 4 in 10 (43.5%) respondents said they had felt sad (8).  

Mencap’s current focus is on creating accessible resources around mental health and wellbeing to help those with a learning disability understand what mental illness can look and feel like, and to support them in developing coping strategies. 

This is our mental health campaign, demanding that the mental health needs of people with a learning disability aren’t forgotten after Covid-19. This included lobbying to open up day services so that people with a learning disability can reconnect with others in their communities.  

In Wales, the ‘Locked Out’ report found out that 73% of those surveyed had suffered a 48% reduction in day services post-pandemic, which has had a massive impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing. 

We were instrumental in lobbying the government to ensure people with a learning disability were prioritised in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination, which made a real difference and will have saved lives

We held our first health inequalities summit in April 2023, where health leaders and campaigners came together to talk about life expectancy, avoidable deaths and other barriers people with a learning disability face when accessing healthcare. 

Mencap also works to ensure people with a learning disability have access to the social care they need and are entitled to. The right support is linked to healthcare, as social care professionals can monitor any health conditions, help direct those they support to health services and explain what options are available.  

There is also a link between day-care services and mental health. Many day-care services have not been reinstated since the pandemic, meaning people are missing out on community connection, which has a knock-on effect on their mental health and wellbeing.  

Our Why We Care campaign, launched in February 2024, aims to give a voice to care workers, to set out their work and passion for the role as well as the pressures they face due to the government’s underfunding of the sector and its decision to de-prioritise social care.  We hope to use this to engage government and other decisions makers, as well as the wider public, in a discussion about the value of care work and the positive difference it can make.