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The purpose of this paper is to report on trends in the provision of health checks for adults with learning disabilities over the period 2008/9‐2011/12.

Analysis of data collected by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care from Primary Care Trusts in England.

Over the four years the percentage of eligible adults receiving a health check has consistently increased and now stands at 53 percent. There remain marked variations across both Strategic Health Authority areas and Primary Care Trusts.

There remains considerable distance to travel before minimum standards of satisfactory performance in the provision of health checks are achieved nationally. It is important to consider possible obstacles to provision and how these can be addressed to improve uptake further.

The paper examines consistency of good and poor performance by local areas over time. It is clear that significant improvements are required in a number of strategic health authority and primary care trust areas if minimum standards are to be met.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the first 15 months of operation of an innovative specialist national public health observatory for intellectual disability.

The paper provides a narrative account of aims and achievements of the service.

In the first 15 months of operation the observatory has: made available to those involved in commissioning health and social care services, a wealth of information on the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities; identified specific improvements that could viably be made to increase the quality of future information; and begun working with local agencies to support them in making the best use of the available information.

People with intellectual disabilities experience significant health inequalities. This paper describes an innovative approach to helping local agencies make the best use of available information in order to commission services that may reduce these inequalities.