By Kate Brackley, Learning Disability Advisor and Lindsey Allen, Programme Lead at Bild.
Kate and Lindsey share the importance of good health care for people with learning disabilities, and Bild for the Future’s work on the new chapter of the Good Lives Framework ‘Health for a good life’.
Health is really important to people with learning disabilities, we want to have a good quality of life and to feel better in ourselves as it gives us confidence to be able to be fitter for life. It is all about making good choices and decisions about our health and wellbeing.
We also want good quality health care that understands who we are as people. This is a basic human right and and we would like to have a good life with good health.
Why is this so important to people with learning disabilities?
This is so important to people with learning disabilities as this is a basic human right and we would like to have a good quality healthcare and to be fitter for life we have to be the same as everyone else in the community.
It’s all about feeling good in our bodies and also our mental health too, we would love to be confident and to be our own champions of health and to live a happy life.
How important is it that people with learning disabilities die younger than the general population and of things that other people do not?
People with learning disabilities do die younger than the general population. They often die from things that other people don’t, things like constipation, diabetes, and overheating.
It is important we get seen by healthcare professionals at the right time and get the reasonable adjustments we need. We want to live long, happy, healthy lives.
How we worked on the good lives framework and how we worked with BFTF and did conference workshops so we could hear from lots of people.
We worked on the good lives framework with Learning Disability England. Bild’s advisory group- Bild for the Future- realised that there was no health chapter included in the good lives framework and we thought it was really important. So we started to talk about health and what it means to people with learning disabilities.
We then went to the Learning Disability England conferences and talked to lots of people about what they thought was the most important things to them. We heard lots from people about their experiences and now the health chapter is now included into the good lives framework.
How can people with learning disabilities have support to help and maintain a healthy lifestyle and to be fit for life when growing older?
Support is essential to people with learning disabilities as this will encourage them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We need to get people with learning disabilities involved and work together. Then we can make sure that people have person-centred ways to build their confidence to have a healthy lifestyle and to be fit for life.
Read chapter 7 of the newly refreshed Good Lives Framework below, coproduced with Bild.