In September the Rep Body held 3 sessions to meet members.
It was great to meet people from across the membership and have a chance to hear about the issues that are important.
We wanted to share an update about what we heard in those meetings and what actions we are taking from that.
You can listen to this page being read out here
Health
Health was included in the topics people thought were important across all voice groups. People talked about how many issues in healthcare and health inequalities aren’t being addressed despite them being a problem for many years.
Action: In 2024 members will be working to develop a Good Health chapter for Good Lives. You can get involved in that work as it starts in January. Sign up for the sessions we are holding with Bild, for people with lived experience (including the families) and a session for professions.
Action: In October we started a piece of work to understand what is happening with Integrated Care Boards across the country and how they are working with people with learning disabilities. We are looking to develop some resources to help everyone understand what Integrated Care Boards responsibilities are and how you can get involved with them.
Social Care
Members highlighted several issues in social care as priorities. Members shared that commissioning isn’t working well for them locally. Many people were concerned about people facing cuts to their budgets, loosing support hours they should be entitled to and the significant impact this has on their lives. People were also worried about recruiting and retaining support staff and that staff aren’t being paid a fair wage.
Action: The Rep Body talked about commissioning during their November meeting. We have agreed that Learning Disability England will do more work on commissioning in 2024, around how we can influence commissioning practices.
How can Learning Disability England work with members better
Members told us what is working well for them and suggested several different things we could change to make it easier for members to get involved.
Accessible information
Members said the newsletter works well for them and is a good place to get information. People would like to see Learning Disability England using other accessible formats more often, including video and audio.
Action: We are going to try to do this more. You’ll notice this page has an audio format too.
Getting Involved
Some members worried that they miss opportunities to get involved in work happening across the membership. It’s important that everyone has the chance to take part in the work that interests them.
Actions: The staff team are working to make sure that we have the right contact details for everyone, if you don’t receive the newsletter and think your organisations contact detailed need updating please get in touch. Gary and Rachael, our Engagement Leads, are happy to talk about getting the most out of your membership. If you would like a chat, you can e-mail on Rachael.Hall@LDEngland.org.uk
Finding time to work together
Members told us Learning Disability England is really good at helping members work together but there is often so much going on that people don’t have time to come to everything or can’t tell what’s most important.
Action: For our Members Network Meetings in 2024, each meeting will have a specific subject to discuss as well as sometime in the agenda for members to share what they’ve got going on. We hope by giving each session and more specific focus it will help people know which meetings are more interesting to them.
The first three members network meetings for 2024 are focusing on partnership boards, transport and the new hospitals programme.
Equal Voices
Members told us Learning Disability England is good at ensuring people with learning disabilities voices and priorities are heard. People worried that there wasn’t such an equal balance of family representation. Learning Disability England exists to bring all three of its voice groups together on an equal basis so it’s important that we get this right.
Action: In the new year the staff team are going to be thinking about how we can ensure we have a strong family voice across the membership. If this is something you or your organisation is interested in get in touch.
What’s Next?
We plan to hold ‘Meet the Reps’ meetings twice a year but you are welcome to get in touch any time by emailing info@LDEngland.org.uk
The next ‘Meet the Reps’ Meetings will be in April. You can sign up here:
We hope to see you there!