10th February 2026
We’re proud to announce a new partnership with the University of Birmingham’s IMPACT Facilitator programme.
Over a 12-month period, a dedicated Facilitator will be based in a location where we support large numbers of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities to work with colleagues to co-design, deliver, and spread evidence-informed improvements. We have put forward Sheffield, Worcester and Frome and the university will recruit in one of these areas.
Pivotal role
At Dimensions, the IMPACT Facilitator will play a pivotal role in supporting our Annual Health Checks campaign. Through this partnership, we aim to increase uptake of Annual Health Checks among the people we support who are on the Learning Disability Register – from around 70% now to 90%.
This improvement will strengthen preventative healthcare for people with learning disabilities and autistic people, tackling longstanding health inequalities and supporting better health outcomes.
‘Delighted’
Dimensions’ chief executive, Rachael Dodgson, said:
Dimensions is delighted to have secured the opportunity to host an IMPACT Facilitator, supporting us to turn evidence into action through our Annual Health Checks campaign. We are aiming for 90% Annual Health Check uptake among the people we support who are on the Learning Disability Register, compared with current uptake of around 70%.
Working with an IMPACT Facilitator will help us target improvement where it’s needed most, strengthen cross-sector collaboration, and use better data to drive lasting change.
We hope the learning from this work will support wider improvements across the system, so more people with learning disabilities and autistic people can access preventative healthcare and experience better health outcomes.
Professor Jon Glasby, Director of IMPACT said: In a difficult context, we’ve been inundated once again with so many colleagues from across the four nations, all with brilliant ideas and a passion to use evidence to make a difference. With a 40% increase in applications since last year, we’ve had a difficult series of decisions to make, striking a balance between different policy and practice priorities, different locations and different types of partner organisation, within social care and beyond. The final list of projects is just the tip of a much bigger iceberg, and we’ve been inspired once again by people’s innovation and commitment.
By the end of our initial grant in December 2027, we’ll have provided practical, hands-on support in nearly 200 host and partner organisations across the UK – the equivalent to nearly one project for every Council/Trust in the UK.