People with a learning disability can find it difficult to access services and often have a different experience of using services than other patients. People with a learning disability face particular barriers. Please use the TABS below to see example barriers.
Personal
Organisational/Environmental
Professional
Personal
- Limited understanding.
- Being distressed in unfamiliar places.
- Have a poor understanding of health or healthy living.
- Have sensory impairments.
- Limited literacy & numeracy skills.
- Have had a previous poor experience.
- Have difficulty waiting.
Organisational/Environmental
- Poor waiting area (crowded & busy, uncomfortable, has strange smells/noises, limited physical access).
- Written information is provided in an inaccessible format.
- Poor signage, lack of seating and other facilities.
- Unfamiliar medical equipment.
Professional
- Workload pressures.
- Have biases & assumptions.
- Have poor listening skills.
- Have limited knowledge of the individual and their preferred communication style.
- Use jargon or long words.
- Diagnostic overshadowing – “once a diagnosis is made of a major condition, there is a tendency to attribute all other problems to that diagnosis, thereby leaving other co-existing conditions un-diagnosed.”
Source: GMS http://neurolaw.com
