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Mental health trust included in learning disability and autism pilot | News and events

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Back to the news

Mental health trust included in learning disability and autism pilot

Sue Bridges with the RCN reps

Teams from Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust are working with the Royal College of Nursing to assess how confident they are in treating service users with a learning disability or autism.

The Trust is one of three chosen to take part in a 12-month pilot scheme, to review how Green Light is working within the organisation, based on the standards in the Green Light Toolkit.

The pilot will identify any learning needs and then inform the design and delivery of a peer-to-peer package addressing these.

It will also investigate how NSFT can refresh and reignite its Green Light Champions role. Green Light Champions ensure that autistic people and people with a learning disability receive equitable services and promote best practice for their care and treatment. 

Representatives from NSFT's localities met on 24 October to discuss the project and agreed to produce a document for Champions to check the standards of Green Light within their teams.

Green Light Lead Sue Bridges said: "The Champions wanted a document for teams to sign up to a gold standard when supporting people with a learning disability or autistic people. They also wanted to separate out LD and autism, having two separate workstreams in the document, which make it clear that people's needs are very different."

Geoff Brennan (Nursing Lead, RCN Mental Health Programmes) and Independent Nurse Consultant Jim Blair are leading the project for the RCN. Geoff said: "Working with Sue and the Trust's Green Light Champions will be a huge benefit to our project, especially given their track record of excellence in this area. We are looking forward to a collaboration that we believe will be of benefit to everyone involved and ultimately support improved patient care."

Those who attended the recent event opted for 10-12 people to attend action learning sets with the RCN, and to feed back to the Green Light Network each month.

Chief Nurse Anthony Deery said: "It's great to see NSFT at the forefront of these kind of projects making sure we are working for the benefit of our service users. It is essential that staff feel confident talking to people with learning disabilities and autism to help them feel comfortable and informed about their care and treatment."

The Green Light Network is already working with the RCN to develop the Green Light Toolkit within the Trust with a view of it being made available nationally across other services.

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