This chat was about the role of Learning Disability Nursing and how it sits in today’s professional field. There have been many people question the role, and recently there have been a number of comments and questions online about the professional identity and the future of the role.

We started the chat by asking what attracted people to the field of Learning Disability? There were a number of responses, including wanting to work with people with Learning Disability, rather than wanting to be a nurse, nursing being about people and person centred care, wanting to make a difference, connect with people and families/carers.

Previous experience and familial connections were talked about as well as people simply stumbling upon it. Interestingly we were joined by an Adult student who shared their experience of working with PWLD on placement, although they felt underprepared for the experience it left them feeling a real passion for the field.

So although the routes in to the career were many and varied, there was an overwhelming feeling of it being about working to support people with a learning disability and nursing being an ideal career to do just that.

When discussing motivation and drive to do the role of the LDN, many felt it was making that difference to people’s lives that motivated them to stay, along with a sense of pride and passion and a desire to change the inequalities and injustice this group of people face.

There were also comments about what would happen if RNLD’s were not about, what impact would lack of knowledge and skills have on our client group. Lucky as we were to have @emajay78 with us to talk about her experience, it was still one that she felt underprepared for, so does this highlight the need for our field?

This brought us to a discussion on the roles available to the LD nurse field. A barrage of roles was shot out into the twittersphere, from community services, hospital services to schools, education and forensic services. Again highlighting the diversity of the roles available to the qualified RNLD, even outside of ‘classic’ LD services our skill mix is recognised as being beneficial to the workforce and value is being placed on what we can bring to the party, and with health and social care integration, this can only grow further.

@HazelPowell11 shared some figures regarding RNLD, showing an increase of 5205 RNLD’s on the register in the last 10 years, showing us as a growing workforce.

When considering the variance between the role of support worker and nurse, one important point raised was that the roles differ but the value we place on them does not, both have equally important roles to play in supporting people with a learning disability. The difference between roles mainly sits within the range of tasks and practices but clearly with a collaborative approach.

Routes into nursing are often debated, and this finds itself on the agenda again. The common consensus in the chat was that there needed to be a range of routes available to suit a broader range of people to be able to take up the role. As we have seen, it is about passion and enthusiasm and a desire to support people with a learning disability, an ignited spark and a little bit of airy fairyness (we like this @lulaperula!) and @samabdulla pointed out very well that it doesn’t matter how one gets there, as long as the right person does.  

One point that was made was that learning disability nursing as a career needs to be more visible. @HabitualJoshing quite rightly pointed out that people need to be supported to take this career step and we need to stop relying on people stumbling upon it. Becoming an RNLD is a worthwhile journey, however we take it. It was great to see comments about the impact that Social Media has had on raising our profile as a career prospect, echoed through the presence of @emajay78 with us.

A degree does offer some great skills that we as nurses can bring to the playing field, such as research skills to inform evidence based practice, critical analysis, underpinning knowledge not to mention professionalism and of course as nurses we are lifelong learners so the skills needed to continue to study and to be able to apply this to continual professional development, something that will support us with the revalidation process to come. Nurses play important roles in our changing healthcare and having that degree puts us on an even footing with other HCP’s. A quote we quite liked was from @carynmcwhirter who rightly said it opens us to a network full of knowledge and passion, using the hashtag ‘we are family’ and we certainly are, together we are better!

It was clear through much of this conversation that we hold ourselves in a great positive light, we love what we do and we are happy to shout it from the rooftops, so it seemed like a good point to throw in some counter questions!  

Here we asked students and professionals alike to respond to the comments we hear such as ‘not a real nurse’ and ‘no jobs to be had’, negative and self-detrimental we know, but they are happening, now, all over the country and some of these said comments have been the topic of recent SoMe posts and are what have inspired this chat, so we felt it was only right to put them out there. 

Thankfully, the response to this was great, it was fantastic to hear more reinforcement for our career pathway and positivity flowed through this, as it had right through the chat. Some important points were raised. ‘We’ as the professionals in this field, and as the aspiring future nurses, must fly the flag for our roles. We are often the ones who fire up this debate by voicing this issue, @NorthwayRuth shared a point made by a speaker at the RCN conference who noted that how we talk about our profession shapes how others view us, this is really important and one thing that resonated through this chat is that apart from this small section (instigated by us!), there was an overwhelming amount of positivity about our profession, anybody reading back over it, or indeed this summary, will get a fantastic sense of the role and the value and worth it offers.

As the chat drew to a close, one quote from the night that really hit home was that of @lulaperula who said ‘I think our networks of linked professionals, parents and people with LD are unique, special and powerful, I love the energy’ and whilst this comment was in response to what motivates us to do our role, it was so fitting for us of this and other chats, lots of energy from a diverse audience who each bring a unique prospective and help spread a powerful message, really answering the question we had tonight… 

To nurse or not to nurse? – Nurse every time!

Thanks to everyone for participating and as always, if you want to comment on the chat and use more than 140 characters, you can comment here on the wecommunities site.

WeLDNurses are @samabdulla @salsa442 @dmarsden49 and @ross_6479