Valuing people: a New Strategy for Learning Disability for the 21st Century

The White Paper ‘Valuing People’ has again brought home to us a problem we have in Learning Disability that doesn't seem to be acknowledged, namely that we don't know who or where the majority of people with learning disabilities are. The White Paper quotes a rate of 2.5% for the percentage of the population who have a learning disability. This is quite close to the 2.3% that one would expect if we defined learning disability as having an IQ of 70 or below. It then goes on to make a number of proposals for learning disability services nationally, one of which is the expectation that each person with a learning disability will have a Health Action Plan (HAP) by June 2005. If this can be done, clearly it is…