Isle of Wight Community Learning Disability Team

The team provides health care to adults with learning disabilities (LD), and works closely with social care colleagues.  

If a referral is sent to the team, one or more of the following professionals may become involved with a person’s care:
•    Community Learning Disability Nursing
•    Hospital LD Liaison Nurse 
•    Nurse Associates
•    Physiotherapy 
•    Occupational Therapy (current vacancy)
•    Psychiatry
•    Psychology
•    Speech and Language therapy (provided by mainstream adult team).

What we do:

• A facilitative model of support
• Improving access to mainstream services
• Maintaining and enhancing the health and wellbeing of people
• Reducing health inequalities experienced
• Providing specialist help, advice and clinical support to people
• Working with individuals, families and carers.

When the Learning Disability team receives a referral it will be screened and allocated to the most appropriate team members. The work of the team falls into the following main areas:

Prevention:

• Support for people with learning disabilities to lead healthy lifestyles

• Screening and early intervention designed to prevent the need for unplanned health or other services (including hospital admissions)

• Provide support and advice for families, statutory and third sector organisations on supporting an individual with learning disabilities  

Assessments and Interventions:  

• Person-centred assessments 

• Mental health and psychological assessments and interventions

• Specialist clinical assessments

• Assessment and interventions for people with behaviours that challenge

Supporting transition from paediatric to adult learning disability services

Working with experts by experience to improve the services offered.
 

Contact the team directly on 01983 534243

Office hours -

Monday to Friday: 9am to 4.30pm (closed on bank holidays)

If you need support outside of these hours then please call NHS 111. 

Email us at iownt.DisabilitiesAdmin.Learning@nhs.net 

You can make a referral to the team by:

• Using the Community Learning Disability Referral form.
• Self referral by service users
• Referrals from GPs or other health professionals, Local Authority, or from families and carers preferably using the Referral form above and via email into the Learning Disabilities mailbox:​​​​iownt.DisabilitiesAdmin.Learning@nhs.net

If it is not clear that the person being referred will meet our criteria, then we suggest completing our screening tool and send that with the referral to save time in this having to then be sent out for completion.

About the service

Learning disability liaison nurses at St Mary's hospital on the Isle of Wight can provide support and guidance to staff and patients. The service can:

• give advice, support and training to staff about caring for people with a learning disability
• help with planning admissions including day surgery and discharge meetings
• link with specialist learning disability services, families, carers, GPs and other organisations.

What we do

The team support people with a learning disability who are coming into hospital and ensure they are not discriminated against due to their disability.

They are also here to improve services for patients with a learning disability so they find it easier to access our hospital, to raise awareness about the needs of people with a learning disability and to ensure we are implementing reasonable adjustments.

This includes supporting with any reasonable adjustments, asking for a patient’s 'This is Me' booklet or offering double appointment slots and offering first or last appointments of the day to minimise the distress of waiting in a busy noisy environment.

The LD Liaison team can also support acute wards and people with a learning disability by:

• Encouraging wards to inform the LD Liaison Team of any appointments or admissions so that they can provide support if required.
• Supporting wards to be aware of jargon and demonstrating appropriate communication – use simple language and using easy read leaflets.
• Check capacity and apply for an independent mental capacity advocate if indicated.
• Many people with a learning disability live in supported living accommodation – not in residential or nursing care. This means they live in their own flats with a care package which may take time to get restarted. It is very important to plan discharge carefully – a meeting may be required if there are changes in the patient’s needs.

How to contact the liaison team?

If you see us around the hospital please feel free to ask us for any advice.

The service operates Monday-Friday, 8.00am - 4.00pm.

To refer to the LD Liaison team please contact:

Phone

St Marys 01983 822099 ext. 5478 or call 07795 121674.

Email

iownt.LDLiaisonTeam@nhs.net

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