Publication, Part of Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities

Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities Experimental Statistics 2019 to 2020

Experimental statistics, Other reports and statistics, Official statistics in development

Publication Date:: 28 Jan 2021
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: Regions, Sub-Integrated Care Boards
Date Range:: 01 Apr 2015 to 31 Mar 2020

Current Chapter

View all

Next Chapter

Data Coverage

Data Quality Notice

NHS England had identified an issue with the data for the following indicator which was reported in the Interactive Visualisation Tool and the data csv file for this publication:

LDOB080 - Number of patients recorded on their general practice’s Learning Disabilities Register aged 14 years or over who have received an annual learning disability health check and have been provided with a health action plan, as at the end of the reporting period.

The proportion of people on the learning disability register with a heath check and health action plan was lower than expected. We have investigated the issue and found an error in the data extraction. We have therefore removed LDOB080 from the published Power BI and csv files for years 2019-20 through to 2024-25. An alternative source of this data is available for this indicator and we recommend that you refer to the Learning Disability Health Check Scheme publication for March 2020: Learning Disabilities Health Check Scheme - NHS England Digital

13 May 2026 11:58 AM

Summary

The outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to unprecedented changes in the work and behaviour of GP practices and consequently the data in this publication may have been impacted, including indicators and contextual data from patients registered at a GP Practice.

The data is extracted through the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) therefore the burden of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has not affected the collection of data for this publication.

Caution should be taken in drawing any conclusions from this data without due consideration of the circumstances both locally and nationally as of 1 January 2020 and NHS Digital would recommend that any use of this data is accompanied by an appropriate caveat.

This publication supersedes and is not comparable with previous versions due to changes to the code clusters used to identify patients with a learning disability. In addition, new indicators have been introduced:

• Two indicators for patients who had a learning disability health check under the Enhanced Service with new age bands which align with Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) data.

• Fourteen indicators to monitor the prescription of medication to patients with a learning disability to support the NHS STOMP (stopping over medication of people with a learning disability, autism, or both) campaign.

• Nine redundant indicators have also been retired. More information on these changes can be found in the Data Quality section of this publication.

The aim of this publication is to provide information about the key differences in healthcare between people with a learning disability and those without. It contains aggregated data on key health issues for people who are recorded by their GP as having a learning disability, and comparative data about a control group who are recorded by their GP as not having a learning disability.

Data has been collected from participating practices using EMIS, EVA Health Technologies formerly MICROTEST and Cegedim Healthcare Systems formerly VISION GP practice systems.

This publication does not include sections on 'Life Expectancy' and 'Mortality' due to issues in obtaining mortality data. Analysis on the excess mortality indicator and life expectancy comparisons will be published at a future date when the data becomes available.

Highlights

England, 2019-20

Coverage

56.6% of patients registered in England in 2019-20 were included in this publication.

Learning Disability Prevalence

0.5% of the patients included in this publication were recorded by their GP as having a learning disability in 2019-20.

Health Checks

57.8% of patients with a learning disability had a Learning Disability Health Check in 2019-20, a statistically significant increase from 51.6% in 2015-16.

ADHD, Autism and Epilepsy

In 2019-20 the percentage of patients with a learning disability who had a diagnosis of ADHD was significantly higher (6.5%) than in patients without a learning disability (0.6%). the percentage of patients with a learning disability who had a diagnosis of autism was significantly higher (24.8%) than in patients without a learning disability (0.7%). the percentage of patients with a learning disability who had a diagnosis of epilepsy and are currently on a drug treatment for epilepsy was significantly higher (16.7%) than in patients without a learning disability (0.6%).

Cancer screening

33.6% of eligible patients with a learning disability had an adequate smear test in 2019-20, an increase of 2.4 percentage points from 2015-16 (31.2%). The percentage of eligible patients without a learning disability who had an adequate smear test increased by 0.7 percentage points over the same period (71.0% 2015-16 to 71.8% 2019-20).

Prescribing

In 2019-20 the percentage of patients with a learning disability who had been prescribed antipsychotics was significantly higher (15.2%) than in patients without a learning disability (0.9%). the percentage of patients with a learning disability who had who had been prescribed benzodiazepines was significantly higher (7.2%) than in patients without a learning disability (2.1%). the percentage of patients with a learning disability who been treated with antidepressants without an active diagnosis of depression was significantly higher (11.6%) than in patients without a learning disability (4.4%). the percentage of patients with a learning disability who been treated with epilepsy drugs without an active diagnosis of epilepsy was significantly higher (5.6%) than in patients without a learning disability (2.4%).