barriers+to+health+care

__**Introduction:**__ There are many factors which inconvenience people with Learning Disabilities (LD) accessing health care services some of these include; Information too complex, technology, discrimination and finances to name a few. __**Complex Information – too challenging to understand:**__ In a study of the Carers (Services and Recognition) Act 1995, It is stated that services are challenging to access for those with LD’s, their families and care providers, and that this has been the case for many years now. The people on the receiving end often feel that its luck that they receive care and that it’s not planned. This is a barrier to those with LD’s as they are unaware of what’s available to them. This can be further confused, as it is largely dependant, on the locality that the service is in how it is managed, for example in Lanarkshire the LD nurses are both located in hospitals and in social work offices. Their job title is also dependant on which locality you are in as some are called LD nurses while others are Health Care Co-ordinators. It’s situations like this that make matters confusing for both clients and their care providers.

__**Limited knowledge of Technology:**__ Anyone who cannot fully access technology can have little to no benefit to advances in health care which are technologically based. As assistive technology is now being more readily used to promote independent living in accordance with the Same as you (2000), this has an impact on the LD client base. Clients are therefore not getting the most out of their health care as they cannot utilise the technology to its fullest potential.

__**Discrimination:**__ The Disability Discrimination Act (1996) has had to address inequalities in health care as part of its policy. People with disabilities face discrimination daily and accessing their health care is no exception to this rule. They are discriminated against by the information not being in understandable formats, by additional time not being allocated for their appointments, by visual aids not being used to explain and often by being ignored when dealing with their health care needs. All of these obstacles detrimentally affect their health care experience which in turn makes the client more reluctant to seek future further help.

__**Finances:**__ People who have LD’s are often on low income or in receipt of benefits, this detrimentally affects the levels of health care which they receive as they cannot afford private clinics and may have to pay for transport to addend appointments, using their limited finances for this may not be seen as a priority especially if they are symptomless. Therefore they may not seek medical support which may long term detrimentally affect their health (Manthorpe, 2007). __**Conclusion:**__ As previously stated people with LD’s have many barriers to accessing health care, the government produced the Health Needs Assessment Report to highlight this issue. The aforementioned reasons are just some of those which prohibit those with LD’s effectively accessing the health care services available to them, other reasons include lack of support and mobility issues to name a few.