Trafford Learning Disability Annual Health Check Programme

People with a learning disability face many inequalities and often have poorer health than the general population.

On average people with a learning disability die 16 years earlier than the general population and so a national learning disability annual health check programme was brought in to improve people’s health and wellbeing, identify any health issues earlier if possible and reduce the number of avoidable deaths in people with learning disabilities.

In Trafford the learning disability annual health check is available at your GP practice.

See more: Learning Disability Health & Wellbeing Page | Trafford Directory

How do I get an annual health check?

The learning disability annual health check is done once a year and offered at your GP practice. Anyone with a learning disability aged 14 years and over is entitled to access the programme.

You need to be added to your GP's learning disability register in order to be offered the learning disability annual health check. You can ring your GP practice and ask to be added to the learning disability register if you are not already on it.

This health check is free and your GP practice contacts everyone on their learning disability register each year to invite you for an annual health check . 

If you are not sure if you are on the register or not you can ring your GP practice and ask to be added to the register.

Find out more in this leaflet put together by Contact on GP annual health checks for children with learning disabilities.

What happens at an annual health check?

This YouTube video tells you a bit more about the national learning disability annual health check programme.

Is there anything I need to think about before I go along for my annual health check?

At the health check the doctor or nurse will ask a lot of questions so we have put together a checklist called Get Checked Out that you can use to think about what you might say before you go.

The checklist also asks you to think about what reasonable adjustments you might need in order to be able to come along and have the health check for example:

• a longer appointment
• easy read information
• someone who knows you well to go along with you.

You can let the practice know in advance that you will need some reasonable adjustments to be made.

There are some useful YouTube videos for anyone who would like to know more about reasonable adjustments: