Carers, support workers, annual health checks, and health passports

Family carers, paid support workers, advocates, and other supporters are often essential to good pharmacy care. They can explain routines, notice changes, and help with medicines. But the person with a learning disability should still remain central wherever possible.

Working well with carers and support workers

• Keep the person at the centre: speak to them directly and involve them as much as possible.
• Clarify roles: not every support worker knows the person's medicines well, and not every relative automatically has consent to discuss confidential information.
• Use supporter knowledge wisely: they may know how the person communicates, what routines work, and what changes are new.
• Give practical follow-up: written or easy-read information, reminders, or a simple next-step plan may be vital.

Annual health checks and health passports

In England, people with a learning disability can have an annual health check from age 14 if they are on their GP's learning disability register. Pharmacy teams are not responsible for providing these checks, but they can encourage eligible people and carers to use them, especially where there are recurring health or medicines concerns.

Some people may also have a health and care passport or similar document. This can contain useful information about communication, reasonable adjustments, medicines, health risks, and what matters to the person. If a passport exists, it should be taken seriously rather than treated as background paperwork.

These tools are especially relevant in England because of the broader systems around learning disability registers, health action plans, and reasonable adjustment recording. Teams in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland should follow local arrangements and equivalent resources where available.

Carers and supporters can make pharmacy care safer, but passports, health checks, and practical adjustment plans are most useful when staff actually use them to change how care is delivered.