REAL-D: REasonable adjustments for Learning Disability - Diabetes

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    REasonable adjustments for Learning Disability - Community diabetes services for adults with a mild or moderate learning disability: evaluating the impact of making reasonable adjustments

  • IRAS ID

    256645

  • Contact name

    Louise Bryant

  • Contact email

    l.d.bryant@leeds.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Leeds

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 1 months, 13 days

  • Research summary

    Adults with a learning disability are twice as likely as adults in the general population to develop diabetes; they develop it earlier and have poorer outcomes. In collaboration with Diabetes UK and Mencap we have recently developed a set of resources for health professionals to support reasonable adjustments to diabetes care in line with the Equality Act 2010. The resources bring together existing materials and best practice to enable the commissioning and delivery of reasonable adjustments and are available online https://www.diabetes.org.uk/learning-disability . The materials complement and link with the 2017 NHS RightCare guidelines for a reasonably adjusted diabetes care pathway.\nThe study will evaluate the initial impact of adopting the reasonable adjustment tools within Leeds. In Phase 1 we will explore the pathways of care for people with a learning disability. In phase 2 using observations and interviews with staff and patients we will identify the challenges faced in diabetes services in primary care and the Community Team and agree the reasonable adjustments required. We will then train health professionals who have direct contact with people with a learning disability and diabetes to use the resources and improve communication with people with a learning disability, and use further observations and interviews to evaluate the implementation and impact of these new resources from the perspective of the service and consider barriers to the implementation of the proposed adjustments for services users and services. If appropriate we will ask a patients care team to assess the effect of implementing them on appropriate outcomes.\n

  • REC name

    Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/YH/0101

  • Date of REC Opinion

    17 Apr 2019

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion