An Annual Health Check is done by your doctor once a year. Your doctor will take a closer look at how you are doing – making sure you’re healthy.
It is available for all people aged 14 and older with a learning disability who are registered at GP surgeries in Kingston and Richmond.
You don’t need to be ill to get a health check, but you can ask your doctor about anything that is hurting or worrying you.
It is a good way to get to know your doctor better, and for them to find out more about you so they can treat you properly if you get ill.
How to get an Annual Health Check?
Call your GP surgery to check you are on their learning disability register. If you aren’t and think you should be, let them know. You could make an appointment to do this or write them a brief letter explaining why (there is help to do this on the Mencap website – see below)
Mencap, the UK's national charity for people with learning disabilities, has produced easy read guides and short films about how to receive extra support by joining the learning disability register.
There is more information the Mencap website
Once you are on their list of people with a learning disability they should invite you to a health check each year. If you think you haven’t had one in the last year it is a good idea to let them know and they should be able to arrange it for you.
Information for health care professionals carrying out health checks
A Learning Disability Toolkit for London (PDF) has been designed to support good quality Learning Disability Annual Health Checks (AHC) within General Practice. It is aimed to be used by all staff within primary care who are involved in organising, managing or delivering annual health checks to people with a learning disability. It contains guidance to support the completion of high quality health checks to improve lives and enable earlier identification of health problems, with the aim of improving physical and mental healthoutcomes for this population.