Introducing the Scottish annual health check for people with learning disabilities.

Having a learning disability shortens your life. Only four out of ten people who have a learning disability will live until the age of 65 compared to 9 out of 10 people who don’t have a learning disability. The Scottish Annual Health Check was recently introduced to challenge the alarming health inequalities and barriers to health that are experienced by people who have a learning disability.  

Health checks have been identified by people with learning disabilities as a primary intervention that has the potential to transform their lives. By providing regular up-to-date information to practitioners, identifying ill health early, reviewing existing health needs and through helping individuals to understand their own health, they are seen by many people with learning disabilities as a primary way to way for them to proactively take ownership of their health. “If you have your health, you can do anything.”  

In this first episode, we explore the background to the Scottish Annual Health Check for People with Learning Disabilities with Amanda McCarren, Policy Manger for Learning Disability at the Scottish Government, Dr Isla McGlade, Professional Learning/Intellectual Disabilities and Neurodevelopmental Advisor at the Scottish Government, and Angela Henderson, Data Advisor within the Scottish Government’s Neurodivergence and Learning Disabilities unit.  

For the purposes of this podcast a learning, or intellectual disability is not the same as a learning difficulty such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or dyscalculia. 

All our episodes contain content that is distressing, please use discretion when listening. Please observe our content warnings. We talk about and relate situations and life events that are distressing. 

• Access the Introducing the Scottish annual health check for people with learning disabilities transcript in a Sway document. 
• Had a listen? Please fill out our short Equal health equal lives feedback form. Four questions to share your thoughts and suggest episode topics. Your input helps us improve and makes our podcast even better!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

NHS Education for Scotland Turas Page (login required although everyone can sign up for an account)  Scottish Annual Health Checks | Turas | Learn 

Scottish Government Information on the Scottish Annual Health Check for People with Learning Disabilities Annual health checks - gov.scot 

Resources from Down’s Syndrome Scotland Annual Health Checks - Down's Syndrome Scotland 

Credits 

Music- Tides of the Golden Oasis- Happy Ramadan Music by BFC Music  

Images from Frog974. Check out their other images on Adobe stock. 

The information contained in this podcast is current at the point of publication, with no guarantee of future relevance.