Speaking at the Learning Disability Today Conference, Mr Burstow outlined progress that had been made over the past eighteen months as he launched the Valuing People Now Summary Report.

Valuing People Now is a three year cross-government strategy developed to help improve the lives of people with learning disabilities. It aims to tackle the challenges that people with learning disabilities tend to face and covers all aspects of life, including health, housing, getting a paid job, personalisation, transition, advocacy, hate crime and relationships.

Key improvements outlined in the progress report include:

• a continuing increase in people having an annual health check;
  
• increasingly more people moving into their own homes from residential campuses; and
  
• real successes in people finding jobs through Project Search, Getting a Life and Jobs First.

All 152 Learning Disability Partnership Boards submitted reports on the progress they had made over the year to March 2010.  The Progress Report also takes into account other reports produced that are relevant to people with learning disabilities – such as the Department of Health’s response to the Parliamentary and Local Government Ombudsman’s Report ‘Six Lives’.

Care Services Minister, Paul Burstow said:

“There are almost a million people with learning disabilities in England and although today’s report shows that good progress has been made - many people still experience challenges when it comes to their health, employment and housing needs.

"We have made up to £2 billion a year extra available over the next four years in social care. This means that alongside efficiency savings, that there is enough funding available both to protect people's access to services and deliver new approaches to improve quality and outcomes."