Kate Hougham from our Primary Care Liaison for People with Learning Disabilities service has won the 'Make it Better Award' from the British Institute of Radiology/IEL for a piece of collaborative work carried out with In-Health, Surrey Choices and Surrey County Council Adult social care.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, she said: "My support was sought to provide specialist learning disability knowledge to improve access to breast screening for ladies with learning disabilities in Surrey. We did this by providing learning disability awareness training to In-Health staff, offering support with individual cases to identify reasonable adjustments/ support around the Mental Capacity Act legislation and involving Surrey Choices customers to create localised easy read resources for ladies with learning disabilities. The work resulted in almost double the number of ladies with learning disabilities having contact with the Surrey breast screening service than any other year."
At the award presentation on Tuesday in Liverpool the chief executive of the British Institute of Radiology, Simon Thompson, said that the award had received its highest number of nominations this year. He said the project was was highly transferable to any screening service working with any vulnerable group, and stressed the importance of supporting ladies with learning disabilities to have equal access to breast screening services.