A special event to for the learning disability community was held last week, with services coming together to promote how they support people with their health and wellbeing needs.

The event, hosted by staff from Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton Council kicked off Mencap’s Learning Disability week at the University of Bolton stadium, with over 100 residents and service users attending to hear more.

Some of the services talking to people included staff from the Paediatric Learning Disability Service, the Enhanced Care Support Team, Mental Health Liaison service, Speech Language Therapy and many more.

The service works closely together across health, social care and mental health to provide a full range of support for people and carers in the learning disability community.

Linda Ashworth, Lead Learning Disability Nurse, Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT) said,

It was great to see so many people from the community come by and speak to our experts. There are a number of great services available to support our learning disability community. It is so important that people are aware of these services and know how to access them and today’s event was aimed at providing that knowledge.

Laura Borg, a Social Worker with the Community Learning Disability Team had this to say about the benefits of working on an integrated team,

It is great to be able to partner with our health colleagues when planning a package of care for an individual. Having that input from different professionals with different areas of expertise works really well for our service users and helps us build a fuller picture of what their needs are.

The event provided a platform where families, carers and service users could interact with the different services, provide valuable feedback on their experiences and learn more about what services that would be right for them.

Nadia Coggin, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, from Greater Manchester Mental Health feels it’s important to create awareness around learning disability services,

I think it is so important that people know what learning disability services and support are available to them there are multiple agencies and services available within the community to empower patients. There is a proactive push for services to work together and improve communication between each other to improve our patient’s journey and help patients access a mainstream service proactively.

Learning Disability week runs from 20th – 26th June and aims to help educate people on learning disabilities in order to remove some of the stigma and discrimination. For more information visit MenCap’s website.