Summary
The Essex Learning Disability Partnership is an innovative and forward-thinking collaboration between Hertfordshire University Partnership Foundation Trust & Essex Partnership University Trust which provides specialist community and inpatient learning disability services across Essex. The partnership’s key aims are to offer and provide expert support to everyone experiencing its services and to do all it can to remove the barriers and obstacles that too often stand in the way of good health and well-being for people with learning disabilities and their family carers.
Contact details
- Phone:
- 01206 366653
- Address:
Lexden Hospital
London Road
Colchester
CO3 4DB
Service Information
Our vision
Our vision is that all people with a learning disability in Essex (with or without Autism) will be able to:
- Enjoy good health and wellbeing
- Experience the best quality of life
- Be fully included and feel valued members of the community
- Lead independent lives and do as much as they are able to
- Make their own choices.
Our principles
Our principles have been co-produced with our service users which have influenced the service. The principles express what good quality integrated care looks like from their perspective, in their words, and are a constant thread running through our model.
The service
We are working to model which looks at each person as an individual. It focuses on increasing personal independence and choice, promoting better health and a better quality of life for people with learning disabilities as empowered citizens.
We are supporting people with learning disabilities to be cared for closer to home, have more control over personal budgets, and have less people going into inpatient services.
We are challenging inequalities in health, and ensure everybody across Essex has the same opportunities.
For more information about the Essex Learning Disability Partnership, including how to refer and useful resources, please visit the Essex Learning Disability Partnership website.
Referral Information
Way In
What Is Way In?
Way In is another name for referral. We call it “Way In” because it is like an entrance that you come through to see us. It is where and how we decide who to help. As it is not possible for us to help everyone, we offer our specialist expertise to those people we are most able to help and benefit. Every person we cannot do something for is guided to somewhere else, such as another part of the health service that is able to help them.
Who can Way In help?
Why are we not able to help everyone we hear you ask! It is a good question and the answer is not that easy to give. Broadly speaking there are two parts to the answer.
Firstly, Way In is only able to offer expert help to people with a learning disability. The guidance that Way In follows to draw this line, which comes from diagnostic criteria from the medical profession and also from policy documents produced by the Department of Health, is what is called ‘eligibility’.
According to the Department of Health (DH) learning disability includes the presence of:
- a significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, to learn new skills (impaired intelligence), with;
- a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning);
- which started before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development
Secondly, Way In will only offer expert help to people with learning disability if:
- Essex Learning Disability Partnership has the skills and resources to meet their needs; and
- there is not another service elsewhere with the necessary or perhaps even better skills and resources, including those available in all the services for the general population (for example mental health services, epilepsy services and dementia services).
Should other more appropriate services suit a person’s needs better – for example from alternative services in health or social care, or any other appropriate services like those in the voluntary sector – Way In will organise guided support for that person to access them.
In summary, to receive specialist input from Essex Learning Disability Partnership you need to be both eligible for a service and have needs that are appropriate for specialist learning disability health support
You can access Way In by completing our referral form. Please save it to your computer and then once completed, e-mail it to: [email protected]