Health and wellbeing

What does this section cover?

Three pages, and they run from a word to a number. what a learning disability is takes the vocabulary apart first, because the phrase used in a letter decides which part of the law answers it. the annual health check follows the one appointment the NHS offers every year from the age of 14, from the register that opens it to the plan that is supposed to come out of it. This page holds the two together: what the health system in England is supposed to provide without being asked, and how to read the figures it publishes about itself each December.

Health sits between the other doors of this handbook on purpose. The check is arranged through a GP practice, the adjustments are owed wherever care happens, and the money that pays for support at home is a council question rather than a health one. Each page keeps its own subject and hands the reader across at the point where the subjects touch.

What is provided without having to ask for it?

The register, and the check that goes with it. The NHS page on annual health checks states that anyone aged 14 or over who is on their doctor's learning disability register can have a free annual health check once a year. The register is kept at the GP practice, and the same page says a person can ask to go on it if they think they have a learning disability. The check is offered rather than imposed: the page also records that a person can choose whether to have one.

NHS, annual health checks for people with a learning disability, page reviewed 24 September 2025, next review due 24 September 2028, read on 3 September 2026.

Alongside the register sits a duty that reaches further than one appointment a year. The same NHS page states that the NHS has to make it as easy for disabled people to use health services as it is for people who are not disabled, and calls that making reasonable adjustments. Its examples are concrete rather than abstract: using pictures, large print or simpler words to say what is happening, booking longer appointments or having a carer with you, and placing an appointment at the beginning or the end of the day. The page adds that the adjustments a person needs should be written down in a health profile or health action plan, which is what turns the duty from a manner of speaking into a document.

NHS, annual health checks for people with a learning disability, page reviewed 24 September 2025, read on 3 September 2026.

Where that duty comes from in law, and what it asks of organisations other than the NHS, is developed under reasonable adjustments in the money and rights section, next to the sections of the Care Act 2014 that carry an assessment and a plan.

What do the yearly figures actually measure?

The number quoted every December is the proportion of patients with a learning disability who had an annual health check. The 2024-25 edition of the statistics records 81.5 per cent, against 79.6 per cent in 2023-24. The publication behind the figure is Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities, published by NHS England on 4 December 2025, and it compares people recorded by their GP as having a learning disability with a comparison group recorded without one, area by area.

Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities, 2024-25, NHS England, published 4 December 2025, read on 3 September 2026.

The same publication records that 35.3 per cent of patients with a learning disability also had a diagnosis of autism in 2024-25, against 33.3 per cent in 2023-24 and 21.4 per cent in 2017-18. A series that reaches back to 2017-18 is what makes a movement readable instead of anecdotal, and it is the reason each figure on this page carries its year and the year before it rather than standing alone.

Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities, 2024-25, NHS England, published 4 December 2025, read on 3 September 2026.

One thing about the shape of the number is worth holding on to before quoting it anywhere. The people counted are the people on GP registers, so the percentage describes how the register is used, and the register is a list kept practice by practice rather than a census. The page that takes the vocabulary apart explains who ends up on that list and why the denominator matters as much as the fraction.

What can you do when the check has not happened?

The NHS page sets the route out in its own words. Check with the doctor's practice whether you or the person you care for is on the register. A practice is invited to offer the check, and the page states plainly that it does not have to; where that happens, the page advises asking the local community learning disability team to help get one. None of this has to be argued from first principles, because the arrangement is written on a dated NHS page rather than handed on by word of mouth.

NHS, annual health checks for people with a learning disability, page reviewed 24 September 2025, read on 3 September 2026.

Going into an appointment with someone whose role is to help you say what matters can also be asked for in advance. independent advocacy explains when a council has to arrange one, what the advocate does in the room, and how that differs from advice.

Where do the figures go when they change?

Every December brings a new edition, and the movement between editions is the part worth watching, more than any single year. dated notes on the figures records what changed, when, and the date the source was opened, so that a percentage quoted in a letter can be traced back to the edition it came from.

Sources read for this page

• NHS, annual health checks for people with a learning disability, page reviewed 24 September 2025
• Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities, 2024-25, NHS England, published 4 December 2025
• Equality Act 2010, revised text on legislation.gov.uk

Each source above was opened on 3 September 2026. Where a page here prints a section number or a figure, the source line beside it names the version that number was read from.