NEWS

Bild welcomes HEE announcement of roll out of Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism

Bild welcomes Health Education England’s (HEE) announcement today that the first part of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism is now live via an e-learning package.

The Health and Care Act 2022 requires that regulated service providers ensure their staff receive training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role.  The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism was developed for this purpose.

In 2020 Bild was chosen as one of the partners to co-design and co-deliver this vital training trial alongside people with lived experience, leading a consortium of eighteen organisations working in collaboration.

We are pleased that HEE is committed to ensuring that experts by experience will be involved in the delivery of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism.  We believe that, to ensure the training results in better outcomes for autistic people and people with learning disabilities and makes a real difference to people’s lives, it is crucial that services seek to ensure the training becomes embedded within services’ practice. It is also important that service providers monitor and evaluate the impact of the training to ensure that the training is delivering the changes needed and identifies areas for further training and improvement as they arise.

Lindsey Allen, Bild’s Learning Disability and Autism Manager said:

“It’s great to see a clear direction for this vital training and to see that it will involve people with lived experience; continuing the good work of the pilot project. The training will support those working in health and social care to provide better care for autistic people and people with learning disabilities and will save lives. It is important to make sure that the training doesn’t stand in isolation, and we hope that it will be linked to other important initiatives such as the UK Government’s social care white paper and the knowledge and skills framework.”

Kate Brackley, Learning Disability Advisor at Bild said:

“We welcome this release date for the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training as this is vital for everyone in the health and social care sector. This will be beneficial to everyone as we do need to get people trained because we do not want any more cases like Oliver to ever happen again. This is now law and mandatory and it’s important to get people to be more aware of this – the more the merrier.”

The training is named after Oliver McGowan, a young autistic man who tragically died in 2016 after being given anti-psychotic medication in hospital. Oliver’s preventable death highlighted the need for health and social care staff to have greater access to training and to better understand the needs of people with learning disabilities and autistic people.