GMC Learning Disabilities
A multimedia website to assist doctors in providing better care for people with learning disabilities.
The website features a video of a GMC-commissioned play about a young woman with Down’s syndrome and the problems that she faces accessing appropriate healthcare.
The play highlights the issues and potential pitfalls involved in treating patients with learning disabilities. By seeing bad practice, the user is encouraged to think about the characteristics of good practice in these circumstances.
The Challenge
We know that sometimes people with learning disabilities don’t receive adequate care from the NHS. Many high profile reports and documentaries have highlighted the failings across health and social care, and it’s noticeable that the mistakes that happen are often around regularly occurring themes (e.g. poor communication, ignoring advice from families).
There is mounting evidence that people with learning disabilities continue to die prematurely from avoidable causes, and that people are not getting access to appropriate support. You can read more on the Learning Disabilities Elf website.
We have been heavily involved in a new website from the General Medical Council that aims to teach doctors how to improve practice. The site identifies the issues, highlights patient perspectives and shows how professionals can put guidance into practice. It’s an interactive resource with lots of video and online learning tools.
Seeing people with learning disabilities as ordinary citizens is paramount. Our lives should be as valued as anyone else.
The website features interactive learning modules. Doctors can work through each module to test their knowledge and consider how they would use GMC guidance in practice.
Users of the website can download a certificate of learning, which they can use as evidence of reflection on their practice.
The Solution
As you’d expect from this kind of site, it was a real team effort to put together, with a huge group of people involved from the word go; this included people with learning disabilities, care-givers, health and social care professionals, researchers, managers, policy makers, information specialists, writers and film-makers.
We designed the website and led on project management, information science and the development of the interactive learning modules that allow doctors to work through a set of real-life scenarios, highlighting the issues and potential pitfalls involved in treating patients with learning disabilities.
The website features dozens of video interviews with experts, clinicians and patients, bringing alive the GMC guidance for doctors.
We worked closely with colleagues from the Rix Centre to build this website for the GMC. Our resident learning disabilities expert, John Northfield, was instrumental in managing progress and keeping things running smoothly. Our talented team from Design By Day, in Manchester, implemented the web design and interactive learning.
