Learning Disability

Work is currently underway in NHS England to encourage children and young people to join the learning disability register at the age of 14 years old, and to support people who do not have a confirmed learning disability diagnosis to access the register and appropriate services.

NHS England has published guidance to support general practitioners (GPs) in identifying people with a learning disability. People with a learning disability are identified using specific codes within a patient record which are then grouped into a ‘code cluster’. Further information on the guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/improving-identification-of-people-with-a-learning-disability-guidance-for-general-practice.pdf

The learning disability register code cluster includes conditions and diagnoses that are highly likely to indicate that a person has a learning disability. Code cluster contents are dynamic and are updated regularly to account for new content. The latest cluster contents can be found in the Primary Care Domain Reference Set Portal, with further information available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/quality-and-outcomes-framework-qof/quality-and-outcome-framework-qof-business-rules/primary-care-domain-reference-set-portal

In addition, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, recently wrote to GPs, emphasising the importance of the learning disability register and providing high quality annual health checks.

As part of efforts to monitor uptake, NHS England data shows that, as of October 2025, there were 343,520 people aged 14 years old and over with a learning disability on the learning disability register in England. The following table shows the number of people on the learning disability register in each region of England:

Source: NHS England published data on the Learning Disability Health Check Scheme for October 2025, a copy of which is attached.