The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism

Aiming to save lives by ensuring the health and social care workforce have the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. 

Updated: February 2025

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism is named after Oliver McGowan, whose death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training. The Health and Care Act 2022 introduced a statutory requirement that CQC-registered providers must ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role.     

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training is the standardised training that was developed for this purpose and is the preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff. 

Oliver's Training also supports the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan ambition by upskilling the wider health and care workforce to provide appropriately adjusted care for people with a learning disability and autistic people to reduce health inequality.

Together we can prevent the many avoidable deaths like Oliver’s from happening again. The animation below aims to help staff and employers across health and social care to understand Oliver's Training and why it is so vitally important.

To find out more about how to access Oliver's Training, please visit the FAQ webpage first.