Adult Learning Disability Health Service

Advice & Guidance

The Adult Learning Disability Health Service - Sirona care & health NHS services  provides the local community learning disability teams - please see their webpage for details.

Community Learning Disabilities Team

They offer a service for people with learning disabilities across BNSSG. Telephone advice and guidance is available pre-referral if needed which can be used by any health and social care professional who requires advice and guidance with regard to supporting the healthcare of people with a learning disability. It can include discussions regarding specific service users (including pre-referral advice) when there is no active referral, or signposting and sharing of resources following general discussions regarding supporting the healthcare of a person with a learning disability.

For advice and guidance in supporting people with a learning disability, call or email the SIRONA Adult Learning Disability Health Service, ALDHS  

BNSSG phone line: 0300 124 5888

Email: sirona.bcldtadviceline@nhs.net

The service is available Monday-Friday, 9am-4pm.

Please see the attached poster which can be printed and given to patients/carers.

People with a learning disability are at an increased risk of COVID-19 and there are also accessible resources available for support. 

Service Overview

The Sirona Adult Learning Disability Health Service provides specialist health services directly to people with learning disabilities.

We are a centre of expertise, linking and liaising with other services and offering support and training on how to work with people who have a learning disability and how to make reasonable adjustments. We work closely with GPs to make sure that people with learning disabilities are offered annual health checks and health screening.

The service sees people in the community including day centres, work places, at home, college or health venues. We also run some clinics and therapy groups and sessions from our team bases. We aim to help people with Learning Disabilities to have the same chances as anyone else and lead a full and interesting life.

We currently have three teams based in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Each team is multi-disciplinary and comprises of:

• Learning Disability Nurses
• Positive Behaviour Support Practitioners
• Clinical psychologists
• Arts therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Physiotherapists
• Speech and Language Therapists
• Psychiatrists
• Therapy assistants

Learning Disability Liaison Nurses at Southmead Hospital

The Learning Disability & Autism Liaison Nurse Service are based at NBT and can support anyone with diagnosed learning disabilities and/or autism over 16 years old at NBT, BRI and WGH.

Please see the Hospital Learning Disability & Autism Liaison Nurses page on Remedy.

Referral Criteria

When referring please ensure the individual has consented to the referral and record this on the referral form. If the individual does not have capacity to consent, please include this on the referral and state the referral is being made in their best interest.

When someone is referred to us for the first time, we will need to assess whether we are the right service to support them. This means:

• We will need to assess if they have a learning disability; and,
• If they have an identified health need, which cannot be met by other services, even with reasonable adjustments

A learning disability includes the presence of a significantly reduced ability to: understand new or complex information; learn new skills (impaired cognition) or to function independently (impaired social functioning). This started before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development.

The presence of a learning disability alone does not mean that we are the right team to support the person. They must also have an identified health need that requires support from our specialist service. Individual’s whose needs can be met by the same services as the general population should still be referred to those services first.

Are there any types of disabilities that we do not provide for?

• Acquired brain injury – acquired post 18 years of age.
• Where mental health or physical impairment is the primary diagnosis, in which case we will work to support more appropriate services with the service user and their family and carers
• Dyslexia, ADHD and Autism without a Learning Disability

Referral

Please use the Referral Form to refer to the Learning Disability Service.

If you do not use this form, they will not be able to accept the referral. 

The referral form can be sent to: sirona.cldtref@nhs.net 

If you are not able to email, the address is provided on the form.

We encourage you to email the referral form where possible.

If you would like any help in completing this form, please contact the service on: 0300 124 5888

Resources

Additional Services

To find additional services within BNSSG please use your MiDoS Login: Login - MiDoS Admin - 2019 (midosweb.co.uk) If you need your password resent, or be issued with one, please contact: Dosteam.southwest@nhs.net

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Information provided through Remedy is continually updated so please be aware any printed copies may quickly become out of date.