Development of a Kent, Surrey & Sussex Learning Disability Community of Practice

You may be aware that the Kent and Medway Learning Disability Community of Practice (K&MLDCoP) is three years old this year and during the last six months has been reviewing its goals and aspirations.

Click here to review an overview of major events over the last three years

It’s model up to this point has been to enable and encourage local membership to contribute to activities based around the three main purposes, those of:-

  1. Eradicate health inequalities for people with learning disabilities
  1. To promote person centred care and support
  1. To encourage equality and access.

This has led to three well attended and evaluated conferences, engagement via social media and IT, and a growing number of clinical and academic projects.

As a result of a review over the last few months, the K&MLDCoP has been considering ways of building on its firm foundations, which has led to a successful bid for resources from Health Education England in Kent, Surrey and Sussex (HEE KSS) to allow them to open up this resource to a wider community.

With this in mind the K&MLDCoP will become the Kent, Surrey and Sussex learning disability Community of Practice over the next six months which will culminate in a 2016 launch Conference.

The CoP are looking for volunteers from across Kent, Surrey and Sussex to get involved in the Conference planning and the continued development of the CoP.

Outline for the conference:

  • A free one day event open to anyone with an interest or working in Learning Disability
  • The day will be made up of a number of short workshops/ presentation provided by community members to showcase the work they are currently doing in field of Learning disability across KSS. This will be videoed and shared via social media (click here to see the 2015 conference details: https://goo.gl/uF0pDp )
  • During the conference the CoP will also host the first meeting of ID Workforce stakeholder group, the information shared at this meeting will guide the future ID workforce development plan for HEE KSS, and is crucial to our work as we move it forward.

We would like as many of you as possible to either attend this event, or put forward someone else in your organisation who can, in order that we can continue to help you make a positive difference. If you would like to know more or would like to be involved in this exciting new start for the CoP, please contact them at kandmldcop@gmail.com

Please feel free to forward this information to any other groups or individuals in your area you think would like to be part of this exciting development.

We look forward to hearing from you soon

Best regards

George Matuska on behalf of

Kent and Medway Learning Disability Community of Practice,
email: kandmldcop@gmail.com
Website: https://kentlivewell.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @kandmldcop

My Healthcare Passport – moving forward

Exciting news!

There is real progress with the accessibility of the “My Healthcare Passport” participants are required to be involved in a  project with this innovative patient held health record system.

Interested – Read on!

As a result of East Kent Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) participative action research study – and the Co-researchers hard work – a new fillable PDF version of “My Healthcare Passport” is available for download at www.ekhuft.nhs.uk/passport. This means that it can be downloaded, typed into, saved and shared.

Along with this, EKHUFT have been working with an organisation called tap2tag https://www.tap2tag.me/ who appeared on Dragon’s Den over the Christmas period.

 Tap2tag could have real benefits for safeguarding people with learning disabilities Healthcare Passports.  Therefore, EKHUFT are looking for 20-25 volunteers to test out the tap2tag system and the new Healthcare Passport.

If you are interested in participating please see the project planning meeting invite. Tap2Tag Project Invite 12-1-16

The meeting is an opportunity to hear a little more about the Passport, Tap2Tag and the plan for the project. From there, if you wanted to join the project, we would be able to give you a tap2tag token to test out.

This is real progress with the accessibility of the “My Healthcare Passport” participants are required to be involved in a project with an innovative patient held health record system.

If you’d like to book a place, please contact Jean Irving on email jirving2@nhs.net or telephone: 01227 864382

We will of course keep you up-dated on the progress of this project!  Watch this space!

Event: Accessible Information Standard implementation

NHS England – Patient & Public Voice & Information have organised regional Accessible Information Standard implementation events for individuals working in NHS and adult social care organisations.

Below are the events which are now available to register to attend.

The links for all the events:

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/841 > 11 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Middlesbrough

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/850 > 13 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Leeds

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/849 > 15 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Manchester

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/848 > 18 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Peterborough

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/847 > 20 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Guildford

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/846 > 22 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Nottingham

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/845 > 25 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Birmingham

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/843 > 27 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – London

http://www.events.england.nhs.uk/nhs-england/844 > 29 January 2016, 10am – 3.30pm – Bournemouth

Find out more about the accessible information standard here: www.england.nhs.uk/accessibleinfo

 http://www.hscic.gov.uk/isce/publication/SCCI1605

 

 

“The healing game: interventional health care for people with an intellectual disability.”

Excellent opportunity to tune into webcast of Prof Mike Kerr’s Seattle Club lecture on Thursday 10th December.

“The healing game: interventional health care for people with an intellectual disability.”

The Welsh Centre for Learning Disabilities will be webcasting Mike’s presentation from precisely 3.20-4.00pm on Thursday 10th December.

If you are interested in joining in the link to access the broadcast online will be:

https://vscene.jisc.ac.uk/jsp/cs/cs000.jsp?STREAM_URL_PATH=NO00184654 

The password will be ‘seattle’.    The technical team have asked us to alert you to a couple of things to be aware of: 

1) People watching the stream will need “administrator” rights on their device. If you are using a work PC/laptop you may have some issues connecting unless you know have Admin rights and know the password.

2) You should also be aware that if you try and connect to the stream too early you will get stuck in a loop and be unable to access the stream. So please come in at 3.20 pm if you can.

If you need further technical information on accessing the webcast, please contact Paul Gaucci at:

GauciP1@cardiff.ac.uk

SeeAbility – National Survey – Can you help?

SeeAbility are looking for two surveys to be completed.  Please read below for more information on this invaluable national survey.

SeeAbility is the national charity that works with people with sight loss and multiple disabilities.

SeeAbility’s national surveys will help us all understand if people with learning disabilities are getting good help to look after their eyes.

SeeAbility want to make sure eye care services are the best they can be for people with learning disabilities. SeeAbility will be putting all the findings into a report we’ll launch in the spring of 2016.  To help we have two surveys:

1) One for parents of children with learning disabilities who are under 14

2) An easy read survey for anyone who is 14 and over. They are both online, but also downloadable to print and send back to SeeAbility for free (please see link below).

You can also send copies to anyone who needs them.

The survey’s are anonymous so no-one has to worry about what they say.

 To find out more go to www.seeability.org/surveys