Our actions and impact

Why did we choose this area?

  • We knew that people with moderate to severe learning difficulties and neurodivergent people were underserved by EOLPC services, including our Hospice
  • We were not aware of those within our employee or volunteer cohort who were neurodivergent or had learning disabilities and therefore weren’t addressing their needs
  • We had connections with local charities but weren’t leveraging them in a way that benefited this cohort of people

What did we do?

Clinically:

  • Built relationships with the managers of residential homes for patients with LD, built trust and listened to their needs and the needs of their patients
  • Increased our clinical learning, internally and externally
  • Reviewed and enhanced the EDI questions we ask of service users, to have better data on which to make decisions
  • Made ‘making adjustments’ the normality for service users with LD
  • Launched an external LD Palliative Care Link Group

In our People work:

  • Changed wording on our job adverts to encourage conversations around adjustments
  • Supported 83% of our people to complete Oliver McGowan training
  • Listened to the experiences of employees and volunteers who are neurodivergent or have learning disabilities
  • Changed how we ask our new employees to read our policies
  • Changed training requirements for volunteer positions
  • Aligned employee and volunteer data requirements for better measurement
  • Completed audit for Disability Confident framework and became Disability Confident Committed accredited
  • Delivered two internal awareness weeks on Autism and LD
  • Actively sought our charity partners to increase our volunteer diversity

Impact

  • Carers and Care Home Managers know and trust us, we have shared knowledge and changed our practices to enable EOLPC for LD service users that is right for them
  • Referrals for LD patients have increased significantly
  • St Wilfrid’s is building a reputation in this area by leading the Learning Disabilities and Palliative Care link group and presenting poster at conference increased circle of influence
  • Influenced variance in policy at Sussex ICB level to remove barriers to the best care possible for LD patients
  • OMG training has increased awareness levels (self-reported)
  • Changes made to volunteer and employee recruitment have provided better equity of opportunity
  • Built trust “It’s been really nice to see St Wilfrid’s taking feedback from Autistic employees and volunteers, and actively making changes to not only improve accessibility in the workplace, but to make the recruitment process more accessible, too”