Clinical leadership

Clinical leaders and leaders of clinical services work with other clinicians to optimise the safety and quality of care.

Develop disability awareness and capacity to address safety and quality risks for people with intellectual disability 

Ensure that clinical leaders, clinicians and safety and quality managers are knowledgeable about people with intellectual disability and:

• Their complex care needs 
• Safety and quality risks in health care
• The importance of reasonable adjustments.

Awareness activities could include: 

• Presenting cases at clinical review meetings regarding the clinical care of people with intellectual disability 
• Including subject matter experts in clinical reviews to ensure barriers are considered and to guide the development of recommendations for quality improvements for people with intellectual disability
• Providing clinical supervision to assist clinicians to critically review their clinical practice, how they plan for reasonable adjustments and how they screen for unmet healthcare needs 
• Involving people with intellectual disability in workforce training to provide insight into their personal experience of health care
• Delivering training focused on reasonable adjustments.

The Council for Intellectual Disability has developed the Reasonable Adjustments Checklist for Health Professionals as a guide for health professionals to use before, during and after a person with intellectual disability presents for a health appointment. This resource has ideas for reasonable adjustments when providing health care to people with intellectual disability.