Mark Bradley

Mark Bradley, Govenor

Mark joined Oxleas six years ago as Health Facilitation Coordinator in Bexley, a new strategic role to improve access to all mainstream NHS services for people with Learning Disabilities (LD). The core of his role is to improve access to primary care services e.g.GPs, opticians and dentists. He has developed his role over the years and it now spans both Bexley and Greenwich boroughs.

Displaying the dynamism that has marked his time with the trust, Mark set up the National Health Facilitation Network in 2005, to share learning with other professionals and to work towards improving access to health services for LD people. It now has 160 members and holds regular events across the country. He is particularly proud that the DH publication: ‘Health Action Planning and Health Facilitation for people with learning disabilities: good practice guidance’ was launched at their Nottingham event in March last year. He was also seconded to the DH Valuing People team from 2007 to 2009 where his work supported the DH to introduce health checks for people with LD nationally.

Mark is passionate about his work and points out that health inequalities mean that people with LD are 58 times more likely to die before the age of 50 compared to the general population. “In Bexley in 2009 fewer than 10% of the registered LD popluation were accessing GP health checks. By 2010 this had risen to over 30% (201 health checks in Bexley) and this is continuing to rise. The LD population nationally is around 2-3%, so in Bexley that amounts to some 4,400 people and in Greenwich to 5,300. GP registers in Bexley and Greenwich currently reflect only a small portion (around 500 in each borough) of the estimated learning disabled population.” The challenge, Mark believes, is in bridging the gap in understanding what LD is and who has it and in educating the general public about the existence of this population and their needs.

Mark joined the Council of Governors (COG) as a staff governor in 2006 when Oxleas became a foundation trust. “I wanted to be able to communicate at a senior level issues relating to LD services that I’m passionate about. I think the foundation trust model is incredibly useful as any member has the chance to stand for election to the COG and I love the transparency of that. Any governor can have open conversations with the Chair or Chief Executive and as such, there's a reassuring feeling that no one is pulling the wool over your eyes.

“LD represents a small fraction of what the trust does, but this is a vulnerable group and though my role as governor is to represent staff who work in LD, I believe I’m supporting the LD population too. LD membership of the trust is still too low, and one of the things I’ve become involved in recently is the Membership Committee of the COG. I’m very interested in helping LD people to have a stake in the trust and the starting point is accessible information about the trust that is relevant to them. One of the first things I got involved with was developing a simplified version of the Oxleas membership form for LD people. But it’s also important to involve partner agencies and I recently gave a presentation to the Learning Disabilities Partnership Board in Bromley about the importance of LD people becoming members of the trust. The board is made up of representatives from the local LD population; from PCTs, The Police, local advocacy services, housing and voluntary sector charities. I also think we should be supporting LD people to become governors as well as members, and I’m interested in how we can make the COG more accessible to them.”

While committed to giving LD people a voice in the trust through becoming members, Mark is clear that the trust must support them to have meaningful involvement: “With rights come responsibilities and we need to help them to think about their responsibilities as members of the community who receive services. And for our part, we need to think about how we can engage new LD members in a meaningful two way dialogue.”