Clarity needed over blanket Covid DNACPR notices for learning disabled persons

Welsh Conservatives have reacted with concern to a news story in which Mencap said it received reports in January from people with learning disabilities that they had been told they would not be resuscitated if they were taken ill with Covid.

Late last year, England’s Care Quality Commission said inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices had caused potentially avoidable deaths of people with learning disabilities who had contracted Covid.

DNACPRs are usually made for people considered too frail to benefit from CPR, but Mencap said some seem to have been issued for people because they had a learning disability.

Angela Burns MS – the Shadow Health Minister – has called on the Welsh Government and the Care Inspectorate Wales to detail policies on DNACPRs as a matter of urgency.

Mrs Burns said:

“This, coming soon after a report by Public Health England that younger people with learning disabilities aged 18 to 34 are 30 times more likely to die of Covid than others the same age, is very worrying.

“Across Wales, people with learning disabilities and their families, and in fact the country as whole, need urgent clarification and detail of the practice of applying DNACPRs, because this goes to the very heart of a caring nation where we expect all lives to be valued – and all people treated – equally.”

Welsh Conservatives last year raised the issue of blanket DNACPRs being given to older persons.