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Oliver McGowan Code of Practice Launched

Posted on: June 20th, 2025 by Charlotte Murray No Comments

The Department of Health and Social Care has launched the Oliver McGowan Code of Practice, marking a significant milestone in improving healthcare for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

The Code, which supports the statutory training requirements introduced by the Health and Care Act 2022, was laid in Parliament on 19 June 2025 and sets clear standards for CQC-registered providers.

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism – named after Oliver McGowan, who tragically died in 2016 after a severe allergic reaction after receiving medication despite family objections – is the government’s recommended training package. Over 3 million people have already completed the elearning modules and there are now more than approved 2,700 trainers delivering interactive sessions for part 2 nationwide.

For more information about Oliver’s Training, visit:  The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism | NHS England | Workforce, training and education. 

The elearning modules are also available on the elfh website.

Reducing the risk of health deterioration for people with a learning disability

Posted on: October 17th, 2023 by Kieron Bradshaw No Comments

People with a learning disability can often be reliant on health and care staff, including social prescribers and non-clinical colleagues, to help them manage their needs and support them to access services. They also experience greater health inequalities compared to the general population.

Healthcare staff including those in non-clinical roles can now access the Caring for People with Learning Disabilities elearning – a free online training programme that aims to reduce preventable causes of ill health, as well as the health inequalities that people with learning disabilities face.

Developed by the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership in collaboration with NHS England, this training comprises four sessions which have been selected as important areas of learning:

  1. Constipation: Constipation is a common health issue for people with learning disabilities for a number of reasons and this resource provides advice and support for carers about why this might be and how they can reduce this for the people they are supporting.
  2. ReSTORE: One of the issues highlighted for people with a learning disability or autism is that communication isn’t always good between a service user and a service. This can result in a person not being able to communicate their health status effectively or in a timely way. Supporting people to understand and inform the right person at the right time when someone with a learning disability is becoming unwell is one of the ways that we want to help colleagues. Carers can also use other things to support the information they give to a health professional; this is called ReSTORE2 mini project. Within this training module we can support you to understand how to use the pulse oximeter as a communication tool to get your concern across to a health professional to get the right support at the right time.
  3. Annual Health Check: Annual Health Check for people with a Learning Disability from the age of 14 is an opportunity to have a full, head to toe examination to make sure that there are no undiagnosed health issues.
  4. Reasonable Adjustments: Reasonable adjustments are required under the Equality Act to help ensure that people who have a disability get the right support to be able to access health services. This session will help carers to gain a good understanding of what reasonable adjustments are and what you can do to support people to get these put in place.

We are also pleased to advise that the elearning will soon be available for unpaid carers. We will share further information about this as it becomes available.

You can find out more by visiting the Caring for People with Learning Disabilities training pages on the NHS Learning Hub.

elfh is a NHS England programme in partnership with the NHS and professional bodies