LeDeR is a quality improvement programme started in 2017. It was set up as one of the key recommendations by The Confidential Inquiry into the Premature Deaths of People with a Learning Disability (CIPOLD). The LeDeR programme is guided by the NHSE National LeDeR Policy. The LeDeR programme was established to review the deaths of people with learning disabilities (and now includes autistic people), identify learning from those deaths and take forward the learning into service improvement initiatives. Reviews are not an investigation of a death but an analysis by reviewers to bring to life the circumstances leading up to the death and provide a portrait of the lives of the people they have reviewed.
All the reviewers who carry out Reviews on behalf of Hertfordshire are registered practitioners with a wealth of experience in different aspects of care and support for people with a learning disability and autistic people. It is from looking at the lives of those referred to us that the reviewers can highlight areas of improvement required.
The LeDeR team has a robust governance process for critically examining completed reviews, including partner agencies (such as social care and the acute hospitals) to analyse and devise actions needed for learning and development for all. This extends to various workstreams, led by the LeDeR team, currently ongoing to deliver projects, prioritised from the learning from LeDeR.
As a team, we expect the LeDeR programme to deliver:
- A positive experience of the LeDeR process for bereaved families.
- Decreasing numbers of avoidable deaths.
- Greater use of reasonable adjustments in health and care services for people with a learning disability and autistic people.
- Better outcomes for people because of local service improvement projects.
- Increased awareness of the main causes of death for people with a learning disability and autistic people among health and social care professionals both locally and nationally.
- Improved data to inform us about the lives and deaths of people with learning disabilities and autistic people.
Anyone can make a referral to LeDeR via the online platform, which can be found at https://leder.nhs.uk/report
The Hertfordshire LeDeR team can be contacted via email leder@hertfordshire.gov.uk