Lives of disabled 'valued less' in NHS, claim A parallel paper, commissioned by Mencap using the same data, calculated that there are more than 1,200 avoidable deaths of people with mental disabilities every year across the country - the equivalent of a Mid-Staffordshire hospital deaths scandal every year. Norman Lamb, the care minister, described the report as "important and sobering." Its author, Dr Pauline Heslop of Bristol University's Norah Fry Research Centre, said the findings were "shocking" and a "wake-up call." "We have, over the past few years, been rightly horrified by the abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View hospital and of vulnerable patients at Mid-Staffordshire," she said. The findings of the confidential inquiry into the deaths of people with learning disabilities should be of no less a concern. The Government-sponsored Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities looked in detail into the circumstances of all deaths involving people with learning difficulties in South West England over a two-year period - almost 250 in total. They also compared them with a sample of deaths involving non-disabled people. It found that 42 per cent of deaths of people with learning disabilities were "premature" and 37 per cent might have been avoided with better or quicker treatment. While early deaths among non-disabled people was often associated with factors such as smoking and drinking - for those with learning difficulties the most common factors were delays or problems with diagnosis, referral and treatment as well as a wider failure to take make allowances for special needs. About a third of those with special needs who died had had trouble communicating pain and a similar proportion had not had an annual health check in the previous year. The most common age for men with learning disabilities to die was just 65 - 13 years before other men. For women with learning disabilities the median age at death was 63 - two decades earlier than other women in the same area. Similar proportions in the two groups presented promptly for health care, but significantly more people with learning disabilities experienced difficulties in the diagnosis and treatment of their illness than did the comparator group," the inquiry concluded. All aspects of care provision, planning, co-ordination and documentation were significantly less good for people with learning disabilities than for the comparators. It found "many" instances" of "inappropriate" Do Not Attempt CPR orders (DNACPRs) based on "assumptions" about the quality of life the person would have if they survived. "In some circumstances, such was the quality of the documentation that the assumption that the order was made because the person had learning disabilities could not be ruled out," the report states. In addition, there were a number of cases where the decision not to resuscitate a person appeared to have been made prematurely in a non-emergency situation, before a full assessment of the person or before gaining the views of those who knew them best. It added: "Professionals must recognise their responsibilities to provide the same level of care to people with learning disabilities as to others, and not to make rapid assumptions about quality of life or the appropriateness of medical or social care interventions." Beverley Dawkins, Mencap national policy manager, said: "This research reveals the scale of discrimination faced by disabled patients, and supports our belief that the lives of people with a learning disability are valued less than other patients by the NHS. We know that doctors and nurses make wrong assumptions about the quality of a patient's life, just because they have a learning disability. Many families have told us that DNR orders have been placed on their loved one, or that life-saving treatment has been withheld. "We are told that doctors say things like "Wouldn't it be kinder to just let him go?" and "if she had been a normal young woman we wouldn't hesitate to treat her." This is discrimination and health professionals who do not treat people with a learning disability equally should be held to account. Dr Heslop said: "People with learning disabilities are struggling to have their illnesses investigated, diagnosed and treated to the same extent as other people. These are shocking findings and must serve as a wake-up call to all of us that action is urgently required.