Throughout November and December, Oxford Health and other agencies arranged a series of talks aimed at carers, family members and clinicians.

The lunchtime talks explored factors impacting on the health and life expectancy of people with learning disabilities covering topics from Promoting Healthy Lifestyles, Epilepsy, Dysphagia and Respiratory Deaths and End of Life Care Planning.

Eddy McDowall, Chief Executive of Association of Care Providers said, “In the depths of the pandemic, Oxford Health, OACP and local partners devised a positive way to spend a focused hour over lunch hearing from clinical experts in their field providing in depth learning opportunities. The recordings and slidesets have built up a fantastic resource to go back to again and again and we aim to build on this to enlarge this local library.”

Still chance to attend a talk

There is another talk on Wednesday 16 December and you can connect via the link Join Microsoft Teams Meeting.

Simon Jones, Nurse Consultant for the learning disabilities team has said: “People with a learning disability are more at risk of having an undiagnosed health condition than any other sector of society.

Oxford Health Foundation Trust and Oxfordshire Association of Care Providers designed the series of lunchtime talks to help people be more alert to the kind of health conditions that are more prevalent in people with a Learning Disability.

“Each talk covers a different aspect of healthcare and all have been well attended. In fact, the initiative has been so successful, that we are looking to do more talks throughout 2021.”

Partnership approach

The series was organised in collaboration by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Oxfordshire Association of Care Providers, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire Care Association, Berkshire Care Association and Oxfordshire Safeguarding Adults Board.

You can view past talks online now:

November 4: Promoting Healthy Lifestyles – https://vimeo.com/475532386

November 11: Health conditions/ Growing older – https://vimeo.com/478093491

November 18: Epilepsy – https://vimeo.com/481201541

Please keep checking back to this page as more videos will be added in due course.