Over the last few months, Learning Disability England has been taking action and campaigning for people with learning disabilities to be prioritised for the COVID 19 vaccine.

On 27th November the Representative Body Co Chairs wrote to Helen Whatley MP, the Minister for Care.

And Learning Disability England coordinated and was co signatory to an Open Letter to the JCVI.

You can find out more and read those letters here.

We have not yet had a response to these letters.

We feel it is important to keep the pressure on and to act quickly now that the vaccination programme has started.

So now the Rep Body Co Chairs have written to Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer.

We have asked him to take action and prioritise people with learning disabilities for vaccination.

You can read the letter here.

We still need your help.

Please write to your MP if you haven’t done that already.

You can use this easy read template from Speak Up to help you to write your letter.

TeYou can find out who your MP is here.xt

If you have already written to your MP, please fill in this short survey to tell us what they said.

You can see the resources from Public Health England about the roll out of the vaccine here.

People will be called for vaccination when it is their turn based on the priorities.

39 Essex Chambers have done a briefing about mental capacity and the vaccine here

This may be useful to you in helping people to think about decisions around vaccination.

NHS England has shared the Standard Operating procedure for Covid vaccinations.

This is aimed at organisations who will be involved in the roll out of vaccines at care homes.

You can read it here

Learning Disability England will carry on trying to get people with a learning disability to be made a priority and we will update you again in the New Year.