Scott Watkin BEM is SeeAbility’s Head of Engagement and leads the Listen Up! Team. Scott is determined to ensure the new NHS 10 year plan includes people with learning disabilities. He gives his reaction to the news that the NHS will drop a key target for GP annual health checks for people with learning disabilities. Over to Scott:

“I am in total shock and despair. The news that there will be no NHS targets for GP annual health checks for people like me is devastating.

It is awful to do this when we still know that people with learning disabilities have a much lower life expectancy (more than 20 years) than people without a learning disability. Our deaths are often preventable and avoidable – it mostly comes down to spotting health issues early and dealing with them quickly.

That is what these GP checks do. They are proven to help and have been shown to stop people going into hospital unnecessarily.

We need more of these checks, not fewer!

Don’t get me wrong - the learning disability health check scheme isn’t perfect by any means. I’ve had great health checks that have picked up on issues and helped me get treatment, while others have been more like box ticking. So the quality of them clearly needs to improve. Instead of ticking a box, professionals should be thinking outside the box.

But either way, they are still so important, and every person with a learning disability needs to have them. I’d really encourage everyone with learning disabilities to keep going to your annual health checks – just because the NHS isn’t tracking them as a target, that doesn’t mean they’re not available.

But my worry is that without a target, these checks could fall by the wayside. And that just adds to the huge pile of issues we already know exist in the health system.

For example, support that can help us, like having a learning disability nurse at the local hospital, isn’t always there. There’s been 44% drop in the number of these nurses in the past 15 years.

Having accessible information, such as easy read, still isn’t happening and other barriers are now in people’s way – like having to book appointments online.

Yes, the Covid pandemic didn’t help, but it also showed how quickly we leave people with learning disabilities behind when things get tough.

People with learning disabilities were up to six times more likely to die from Covid 19 than the general population. If you were from a minority ethnic background or had profound or multiple learning disabilities, the statistics were even more grim.

And yet right now, government advisors are failing to include people with learning disabilities in the 2025/26 Covid vaccination programme.

Sometimes I feel we really are at the bottom of the pile.

I mean, the NHS is still having to say out loud that having a learning disability is not a reason for not attempting to resuscitate someone. That is shocking!

But I refuse to be written off and written out of NHS plans

When I was younger it was really positive to have a government strategy for people with learning disabilities. It gave us all something to focus on. We were all moving in the same direction.

I really believe the new NHS 10 year plan has to include a whole new strategy on the health of people with learning disabilities. My Listen Up! Team have been blogging about this too.

The good news is there is still time to have your say. We must not be ignored!

You can still respond to the Change NHS plan.

I’ve been working with my MP to get questions asked, and I’d encourage everyone to contact their MP too.

Tell them that people with learning disabilities shouldn’t be written off and written out of this new NHS plan!