Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities Experimental Statistics 2019 to 2020

The percentage of patients with a learning disability, who also have a diagnosis of ADHD is significantly greater than the percentage of the population who have a diagnosis of ADHD but do not have a learning disability. The percentage of patients who have a diagnosis of ADHD has significantly increased in both populations each year from 4.7% in 2015-16 to 6.5% in 2019-20 for patients with a learning disability and 0.4% in 2015-16 to 0.6% in 2019-20 for patients without a learning disability.

Each year between 2015-16 and 2019-20, a significantly larger percentage of patients with a learning disability, who also have a diagnosis of ADHD, were treated with melatonin than the population of patients who have a diagnosis of ADHD who don’t have a learning disability. This ranges from a difference of 3.3 percentage points in 2015-16 to 4.2 percentage points in 2019-20.

In 2019-20, the percentage of patients without a learning disability who had a diagnosis of autism was significantly lower (0.7%) than in patients with a learning disability (24.8%). This is also a significant increase in the percentage of patients with a learning disability who also had a diagnosis of autism from 18.4% in 2015-16.

In 2015-16 patients with a learning disability were 27 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those without a learning disability this fell to 23 times more likely in 2019-20.

Each year between 2015-16 and 2019-20, a significantly larger percentage of patients with a learning disability, and who have a diagnosis of epilepsy, are currently on drug treatment for epilepsy than the population of patients who have a diagnosis of epilepsy and are currently on drug treatment for epilepsy who don’t have a learning disability. This ranges from a difference of 16.7 percentage points in 2015-16 to 16.1 percentage points in 2019-20.

Each year between 2015-16 and 2019-20, a significantly larger percentage of patients with a learning disability, who have a diagnosis of epilepsy and are currently on drug treatment for epilepsy have a record of seizure frequency in the 12 months up to and including the end of the reporting period compared to patients without a learning disability.

The percentage of patients with a learning disability, who have a diagnosis of epilepsy and are currently on drug treatment for epilepsy and have a record of seizure frequency has increased from 23.5% in 2015-16 to 30.4% in 2018-19 with a small decrease to 29.6% in 2019-20. The cohort of patients without a learning disability decreased steadily from 13.9% in 2015-16 to 9.0% in 2019-20.

Each year between 2015-16 and 2019-20, a significantly smaller percentage of patients with a learning disability, who have a diagnosis of epilepsy and are currently on drug treatment for epilepsy have a record of seizure frequency who have been seizure-free in the 12 months up to and including the end of the reporting period compared to patients without a learning disability.