National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability

QDN has been working with partners nationally over the past decade which has brought together people with intellectual disabilities and their families, professors, clinicians, advocates, and decision makers to understand how the healthcare of people with intellectual disability can be improved.  QDN supported the national campaign “Our Health Counts – End Deadly Disability Discrimination’ launched in 2019 led by Council for Intellectual Disability.

We are pleased with the outcome of this work, with the recent launch of the National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability by Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Greg Hunt MP.

The key objectives of the National Roadmap are to:

• improve support for people with intellectual disability, their families and carers
• develop better models of care for people with intellectual disability
• support health professionals to deliver quality care for people with intellectual disability
• improve the oral health of people with intellectual disability
• improve monitoring of the health of people with intellectual disability, and
• ensure that the needs of people with intellectual disability are considered and met in emergency plans and responses.

Both the full and Easy Read versions of the document can be found at: National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability | Australian Government Department of Health.

QDN and partners, QCIDD (Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability), the Queensland Public Advocate and I CAN (Institute for Clinical Advancement of Neuroplasticity) hosted a roundtable in March 2019 on health and intellectual disability bringing together over 80 delegates from diverse range of lived experiences of disability and health, disability, community, advocacy and rights and justice sectors.

This has built upon other Roundtables that have been held with partners Community Living Association, WWILD-SVP and ASID Queensland.  A link to the summary from the 2019 Roundtable can be found here. https://qdn.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Summary-of-Roundtable-on-health-and-intellectual-disability.pdf.

QDN, our Hot Topic groups and members look forward to working with our partners, Government, Hospital and Health Services, Primary Health Networks, allied health, and other key stakeholders to support the implementation of the actions and this national roadmap to bring about change.