Our aim is for people across South Yorkshire (SY) that are living with learning disabilities, have a serious mental illness, individuals living complex lives (including homelessness) and our aged populations to receive better treatment, support and advice.

Autism and learning disabilities

We need to improve our understanding of learning disabilities and autism for patients, carers and representatives.

We know that people living with learning disabilities also tend to experience greater health inequalities when seeking support for mental health and physical health concerns, where worsening health conditions can arise from not being able to spot the signs or trigger warnings of more serious symptoms.

Individuals that are living with learning disabilities are sometimes less inclined to go to routine health check-ups (like blood pressure, weight and cholesterol) that might help to detect symptoms of physical health conditions earlier.

SYs health and care system can play an important role by working more closely with the voluntary sector to improve the experiences of families and people with long term disabilities, learning disabilities and autism.

By increasing our crisis response and extending hours of service in the community, promoting health and wellbeing and annual health checks and through appropriate training for staff to increase awareness, we can do so much more.

Specifically, this will see the development of housing needs assessments for people with learning disabilities and autism, reviewing our workforce to develop new roles (to address any skills gaps) and ensure our patient information systems help staff to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

Long-term physical disabilities

Many long term disabilities that have been caused through preventable disease, such as strokes and Type-2 diabetes, are being addressed through a combination of improving the care pathways in our region (in services and treatments) but also through prevention schemes.  

In doing so, this will ensure that prevention measures are commissioned, resourced and delivered at sufficient scale - and in a sustainable way. This will help to ensure that individuals from the most disadvantaged backgrounds benefit the most.

We will put the spotlight on cardiorespiratory and mental health and prevention and put actions in place to deliver consistent high quality care and access to care for vulnerable communities, such as physical health checks for people with severe mental illness or learning disabilities and continuity of care during pregnancy.

Children

In younger age groups, we will support children to be ready for school and maximise their potential with improved provision of services such as perinatal mental health, early diagnosis and support for people with learning disabilities and autism and personalised health care for those with long term conditions and disabilities.