Health and healthcare of people with learning disabilities in the United Kingdom through the COVID‐19 pandemic

• Published in: British journal of learning disabilities 2024-06, Vol.52 (2), p.260-271
• Main Authors: Hatton, Chris, Hastings, Richard P., Caton, Sue, Bradshaw, Jill, Jahoda, Andrew, Kelly, Rosemary, Maguire, Roseann, Oloidi, Edward, Taggart, Laurence, Todd, Stuart
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autumn; COVID-19; Disabilities; health; health and social care policy and practice; Health care; Health services; learning (intellectual) disabilities; Learning disabilities; Online Surveys; Pandemics; People with disabilities; Public health; Resistance (Psychology); Vaccination; Winter
• ISSN: 1354-4187; 1468-3156
• DOI: 10.1111/bld.12578

Background During the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, many health services were withdrawn from people with learning disabilities, with negative impacts on people's health. What has happened to people's health and healthcare as we move beyond the pandemic? Methods Access to health services and health status were tracked for 550 UK adults with learning disabilities, using structured online interviews with people with learning disabilities and online surveys with family members or paid carers. Information was provided four times, from Wave 1 (in the winter 2020/2021 ‘lockdown’) to Wave 4 (autumn 2022, over a year after public health protections stopped). Findings By Wave 4, most people with learning disabilities had had COVID‐19, although high vaccination rates limited the number of people hospitalised. There was little evidence that use of GP services, community nurses, other therapists or annual health checks had increased over time, and at Wave 4 more people were having difficulty getting their medicines. People's health did not substantially improve over time. People with profound and multiple learning disabilities had poorer health and were less likely to be accessing health services. Conclusions Improvements in access to health services for people with learning disabilities after the pandemic have not yet happened. Accessible Summaries Many health services stopped for people with learning disabilities in the COVID‐19 pandemic, with a bad impact on people's health. What has happened to people's health and how they use health services through the COVID‐19 pandemic and beyond? People and families told us about the health of over 500 people with learning disabilities living in the United Kingdom four times, from the national lockdown in winter 2020/2021 through to autumn 2022. A lot of people were still not getting the health services they needed after the end of the pandemic, and people's health was not getting better. People with profound and multiple learning disabilities had worse health but were not in contact with health services as much as other people with learning disabilities.