Avoiding harm from psychotropics – Resources

NHS England have produced resources and information to support the MedSIP programme and STOMP, “Stopping over-medication of people with a learning disability and autistic people”.

• Guidance: Supporting autistic people and people with a learning disability to live well in their communities.
• Booklet: Stopping Over-Medication of People with a Learning Disability, Autism or Both – Reducing inappropriate psychotropic drugs in people with a learning disability, autism or both in general practice and hospitals.
• Guidance: Stopping over medication of people with a learning disability and autistic people (STOMP) and supporting treatment and appropriate medication in paediatrics (STAMP).

The Royal College of Pharmacy have produced a guide and collated a suite of resources to cover a range of practical issues. They help to raise awareness about the needs of people with a learning disability and autistic people, and teams to implement the better services.

Their website includes the Co-SMR resources which are a set of tools and resources to use for reviewing psychotropic medications. These resources include information for patients and carers, and best practice guidance.

• Resource: Learning disability and autism awareness.

Clinical Digital Resource Collaborative (CDRC) have created searches to enable GP Practices to identify patients on their Learning Disability Register, including those on psychotropic medications.

• Resources: EMIS: Learning Disabilities.
• Resources: Learning Disabilities – Accessing CDRC resources on SystmOne.

The Reasonable Adjustment Campaign has been developed by the North East & Cumbria Learning Disability Network, and includes information and resources to support your work.

• Resources: Reasonable Adjustment Campaign.

The Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag is a national, visible marker on a person’s record, indicating any reasonable adjustments needed by a person with a disability whenever and wherever they are seen or treated by any publicly-funded health and social care service.

All NHS and publicly-funded social care providers in England must meet the legal requirements of the new Information Standard by 30 September 2026. The Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag is designed to help with this.

• Guidance: Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag Information Standard.
• Guidance: Reasonable adjustment digital flag guide – Easy read version.
• Resource: Reasonable adjustment digital flag action checklist.
• Guidance: NHS Futures – Flagging reasonable adjustments – everything I need to know.

The Universal Care Plan (UCP) is a digital care plan enabling patients to share ‘what matters to people’ with all caregivers – be it ambulance, community, hospital, or home. It has recently expanded to support people with learning disabilities – who can enter information about their support needs.

• Website: Universal Care Plan
• Guidance for patients: What is the UCP? – Patients
• Easy Read guidance: What is the Universal Care Plan For Londoners
• Resource: Universal Care Plan – Training video for staff

Spectrom have created a set of leaflets on medications in Easy Read.

• Resources: Easy Read medication leaflets – Medicine (Psychotropics)

Oxleas NHS FoundationTrust have leaflets on different medications available in Easy Read.
Search on the medication and chooose Vera as the leaflet type where available.

• Resources: “Choice and Medication” Leaflets available for printing

STOMP stands for Stopping Over-Medication of People (STOMP) with a Learning Disability and Autistic People (LDA ). The NHS South East London STOMP clinic is a multidisciplinary team working to help ensure that people with a learning disability and autistic are only prescribed the medicines they need.

• Blog: A Personalised Path to Better Health: The STOMP Clinic Explained by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
•  News: The STOMP clinic in action: Supporting people with learning disabilities in south east London by South East London ICB

Seeability, in partnership with South East London ICB, have worked with local eye care services to improve access for people with learning disabilities and autistic people. These areas now offer an easy eye care pathway, which means longer appointments through opticians who have had additional training on supporting people with learning disabilities.

• Resource: Easy eye care pathway for people with learning diabilities by Seeability

All CQC registered health and social care providers have been required to provide training for their staff in learning disability and autism, including how to interact appropriately with autistic people and people with a learning disability.

• Guidance: Brief guide: Mandatory training requirement on learning disability and autism
• Guidance: Easy Read – Training on learning disability and autism: What all care staff must do

This brief guide “will help inspection teams assess whether a provider is adequately managing the use of psychotropic medications (antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilisers and anxiolytics) in caring for a person with intellectual disabilities”. This guide is under review, with an updated version due to be published shortly.

• Guidance: Brief guide: psychotropic medication in intellectual and
  developmental disability