he NHS has a crucial role to play in helping people with a learning disability and autistic people to lead longer, happier and healthier lives. That’s why in the Long Term Plan, the NHS committed to improving the level of awareness and understanding across the NHS of how best to support people with a learning disability and autistic people as patients. So that adjustments to care can be made to ensure that these groups of people get equal access to high quality care.
It’s important to understand that people with a learning disability generally have higher rates of health problems than the general population, these may be undetected and untreated. They contribute to inequalities in mortality experienced by people with a learning disability.
This is certainly the case for oral health, where evidence shows greater unmet oral health needs, poorer access to dental services and less preventive dental interventions. And for those patients who require referral into secondary Special Care Dental Services there may be waiting times which mean primary dental care will continue to support the patient.
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