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• Where people within this age range have specific needs because of physical disability or chronic health conditions, proportionate, person-centred and responsive care and support may be required to help them achieve positive personal outcomes and live as independently as possible.
• Arangeof‘acceleratingfactors’havebeenidentifiedwithinpeople’senvironments that might increase the likelihood of them developing an ongoing health condition, or aggravate the effects of existing conditions, and against which mitigating action should be taken. These include unemployment, low wages and poor housing conditions.
• Effective promotion of public health, targeted care and support for those with specific needs and more general support for people particularly at risk should combine to optimise the quality of people’s lives and their participation within their communities.
• Supporting people to live active and healthy lives will reduce their needs for care and support and lead to improved outcomes at an individual and community level. The contribution of care and support services must be complemented by a range of collaborative approaches to improve people’s social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing.
• Public Health has an important role in providing the population with general information and advice on healthy life choices and support in areas such as diet and smoking cessation. This needs to start in the early years but should be sustained where possible across the range of age groups.
Gaps and areas for improvement in relation to health and physical disabilities are listed on pages 95 - 98 of the main report.
Learning Disability and Autism
Learning Disability can be defined as:
• A significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information and to learn new skills (impaired intelligence)
• Areducedabilitytocopeindependently(impairedsocialfunctioning);or
• Theseareinevidencebeforeadulthoodandhavealastingeffectondevelopment
The way in which the needs of people with a Learning Disability are met has changed over the last twenty years. People who would historically have been placed in institutional care are increasingly being supported to live in their communities. Health and social care services along with the third sector collaborate to maximise the independence and potential of those who use our services.
Although Autism is not a learning disability it has been included in this section as services for people on the spectrum are generally provided from within learning disability teams or community mental health teams and NICE guidance (2008, 2016) provides standards for provision of services.
West Wales Population Assessment March 2017 Executive Summary