Awareness of social care needs in people with epilepsy and intellectual disability

•We explore UK Health & social care professionals’ awareness of epilepsy needs in ID.•Both groups (>90%) uniformly highly rated the importance of epilepsy and SUDEP training.•Significant differences were present in confidence in managing epilepsy care aspects.•A major gap in awareness of needs exists between UK health and social care services.•Role clarification, essential training, national pathways and more resources are needed. Nearly a quarter of people with intellectual disability (ID) have epilepsy with large numbers experiencing drug-resistant epilepsy, and premature mortality. To mitigate epilepsy risks the environment and social care needs, particularly in professional care settings, need to be met. To compare professional care groups as regards their subjective confidence and perceived responsibility when managing the need of people with ID and epilepsy. A multi-agency expert panel developed a questionnaire with embedded case vignettes with quantitative and qualitative elements to understand training and confidence in the health and social determinants of people with ID and epilepsy. The cross-sectional survey was disseminated amongst health and social care professionals working with people with ID in the UK using an exponential non-discriminative snow-balling methodology. Group comparisons were undertaken using suitable statistical tests including Fisher’s exact, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney. Bonferroni correction was applied to significant (p