4th September 2025
The percentage of “avoidable deaths” — where death occurs in someone under the age of 75 to a condition deemed preventable, treatable, or both — has fallen from 46 per cent in 2021 to 39 per cent in 2023. Whilst this small improvement is positive, it’s not good enough, it means that people with a learning disability or autism are still dying almost 20 years younger than the general population.
Rachael Dodgson, Chief Executive of Dimensions said:
Dimensions is one of only two support providers to sit on the LeDeR Independent Advisory Group. It is deeply troubling that healthcare is still not meeting the needs of people with a learning disability and autistic people. Services are often inaccessible, staff lack training, and patients are being turned away, misdiagnosed, or incorrectly treated. People and their families deserve better.
In 2023 the most common causes of avoidable death in people with learning disabilities or autism were influenza, pneumonia, cancers of the digestive tract and heart disease.
The report found 37% of deaths involved some form of delay in care or treatment, while 28% reported instances where diagnosis and treatment guidelines were not met.
Researchers also analysed the data available for people with a severe or profound learning disability, approximately one third of the reported cases since 2021 fall into this category. Analysis established that those individuals have a younger median age of death (57 versus 64) and are more likely to have a treatable cause of death due to conditions such as pneumonia or seizures. In comparison, those with a mild or moderate learning disability were more likely to have preventable causes of death, such as those related to heart disease or cancer.
People from Black, Asian or mixed backgrounds with a learning disability died on average at 43 years old, nearly 20 years younger than White. However, this data needs to be treated with caution as the numbers are very low.
We welcome the recommendations for improvement in the report, but we would like them to go further. There needs to be:
- Renewed attention to the importance of Annual Learning Disability Health Checks. Following the removal of health outcome targets for people with learning disabilities in the NHS Operational Guidance for 2025/26, integrated care boards (ICBs) and health professionals must prioritise this.
- Health services need to be more accessible, and we have been working with clinicians to show them how reasonable adjustments can be put in place to carry out a thorough annual health check.
- There needs to be greater understanding of the Mental Capacity Act and Best Interest decisions, more involvement in decisions by people who know the individual well. As the report says, responses will often need to be different to those for people with mild or moderate learning disabilities and those with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
It is particularly upsetting to read about the numbers of autistic people without a learning disability whose lives ended by suicide. Although this related to a small data sample, it develops from a trend seen in the 2022 report and should be the focus of significant efforts to understand what interventions could prevent further deaths.