Meeting your accessibility needs
Coming to hospital if you have a learning disability
Supporting patients with a learning disability
- To help you we have a Hospital Passport for you and a family member or carer to complete
- We have a dedicated Learning Disability Team who you can contact. The team can offer advice, guidance and support before or during your visit to one of our hospitals. We want to help make sure your visit to any of our hospitals is a good one
- Each site has a dedicated team member. Click on the ‘Meet the team’ tab below for their contact details
- Did you know, our A&E at The Royal London Hospital is the first in London to be accredited by the National Autistic Society?
Communicating in a way that works for you
Using British Sign Language
We offer face to face BSL interpreting and relay video BSL via SignLive .
Contact our teams for specialist support:
Drop in to the audiology clinic at The Royal London Hospital, open Monday-Friday, 9am to 4pm. You can find the audiology clinic at The Royal London Hospital, South Tower via Luckes Entrance, in the Audiology Department, First Floor, Clinic 4, Stepney Way, Whitechapel. Hearing aid repairs are by appointment only. To make an appointment please email the adult audiology team or call 0207 377 7673.
Arranging advocacy support
Arranging interpreting support
Advocacy support can be arranged in advance of your appointment by the reception staff of the department/ward that you are attending.
Languages that are covered in-house are Bengali/Sylheti, Cantonese/Vietnamese, Turkish, Somali, Polish, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati, Russian, Romanian and French.
Please be aware on some occasions face-to-face is not always possible, for this telephone Interpreting can be arranged again by the department/ward and this can be done on the day of your appointment and can be accessed 24/7.
we have worked with AccessAble, the UK’s leading provider of detailed disabled access information, to create detailed access guides to our hospitals.
AccessAble guides
We know everyone’s accessibility needs are different. This is why we have worked with AccessAble, the UK’s leading provider of detailed disabled access information, to create detailed access guides to our hospitals.
Meet the learning disabilities team
Learning Disability Team
We have a learning Disability team that work across our hospitals with a designated Learning Disability Liaison nurse at each site, who you can contact before you come to Hospital.
The team can ensure your visit to any of our hospitals is a good one.
Contact Details
The Learning Disabilities Team can be contacted on
Call: 07713099156
Email the Learning Disability Team
Tricia Handley
Lead Nurse for Learning Disabilities
Mobile: 07713099156
Email Patricia
Reeny Mariampillai
Clinical Nurse Specialist at Whipps Cross & St. Bartholomew’s Hospital
Mobile: 0784 2322 657
Email Reeny
Hannah Elsdon
Learning Disability Nurse Practitioner at Newham Hospital
Mobile: 0784 2322 662
Email Hannah
Martine Burrell
AHP Liaison Practitioner Learning Disabilities at Royal London Hospital
Tel: 07842 322 660
Email Martine
Ben Taylor
Education Nurse Practitioner - Education lead for learning Disabilities & Autism, Trust wide
Mobile: 07933171684
Email Ben
The Hospital Passport
The Hospital Passport has information about you and your carers so that you can make decisions with our staff and get the best help.
What is a hospital passport?
- It helps us to make Reasonable adjustments.
- Reasonable adjustments are changes to the way we usually do things
- The Hospital Passport can be completed by someone who knows you well.
How do I get a Hospital Passport?
Download the Hospital Passport
- From hospital staff when you are admitted – but this is best done before you come to hospital
- Your local Community Learning Disability Service
- You can type into the document or handwrite. Typing means you can update it when things change
- Don’t forget to tell us if you have any worries about coming to hospital
Help with travel costs
If you're referred to one of our hospitals for specialist NHS treatment or diagnostic tests by a doctor, dentist or another primary care health professional, you may be able to claim a refund of reasonable travel costs under the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme.
Our cashier's office is located at The Royal London Hospital. You can find it on the second floor, central tower.
Family and carer: frequently asked questions
We recognise that family carers play a vital and incr
easing role in our society.
The NHS Constitution and the NHS Commitment to Carers recognise the importance of carers, and the need to ensure you are seen as partners in care, and often experts in the knowledge you bring about your family member.
By working together in partnership we recognise we can deliver an improved experience and better outcomes for your family member and yourself. We have a Carers' Policy: Recognising Carers as Partners in Care.
Frequently Asked Questions
My daughter is being admitted to a ward and she needs me to stay?
We have open access visiting if you wish to stay overnight and continue caring for your daughter. Let staff know in A&E or at your outpatient appointment if it is a planned admission.
I have heard I can get a sleeper chair for an overnight stay, is this correct?
We have two sleeper chairs each at Whipps Cross, Newham and The Royal London Hospital. We will do out best to make one of these available. Occasionally they are already in use. We are looking to increase the number across our sites.
I am happy to carry on with helping my son with his personal care, eating and drinking but I will need a break, can I get help?
We have a Carers' Plan which staff can discuss with you. This will help us by knowing what help you will continue to give but also how you can take care of yourself when you are staying, including breaks.
I have been told I no longer make decisions about my son's treatment as he is an adult, but I know him better than anyone else. How can I be involved?
If someone does not have an understanding (capacity) to make a decision about their care and treatment, the law says we need to involve family. Please be assured that your input is often essential.
I want to speak to the doctor about my daughter's treatment but am unable to visit during ward rounds when the doctor is there, what can I do?
Please speak to the nurse looking after your daughter and ask them to arrange a time for you to meet the doctor. The doctor looking after your daughter will then be able to fix a mutually agreed time. It is vitally important that you are kept up to date with care and treatment if your daughter does not have the capacity to make her own decisions.
I have been told that hospital needs to make reasonable adjustments for people who have learning disabilities. What does that mean?
By law, we need to ensure that people with disabilities get the same high-quality care and the same expected health outcomes as someone without a disability. This means we need to do some things a bit differently, for example, we allow carers to stay overnight, we see people at the beginning of a clinic to cut down on possible waiting, we can use easy read material to help the person understand.
My son has autism and doesn’t like noise. He finds hospitals very difficult, what can I do?
Letting us know in advance can be really helpful. You can contact the lead nurse for People with Learning Disabilities and agree what reasonable adjustments need to be made. You can also complete the Hospital Passport and give this to staff when you arrive.
National guidance tells us we need to put a Flag/Alert on our system that nurses and doctors can see telling us the person has a learning disability. We can add comments to this so if your son has to attend A&E we will know if he has extreme difficulty waiting in a busy area where it may be noisy.
The Hospital Passport is a great way to tell A&E staff what your son's needs are if he has to attend. It can be completed online and updated easily when you need to.