LEARNING DISABILITY PRACTICEApril 2009 | Volume 12 | Number 314
Feature
Who Do YoU
ThINK YoU are?
A survey of readers of RCN Publishing's specialist journals
has found learning disability nurses love their jobs but they
are worried about the future. Christian Duffin reports
This article examines the findings from a survey of readers of RCN Publishing's
specialist nursing journals, which cover a broad range of fields, including mental
health, care of older people, emergency nursing and primary health care. The
survey provides a snapshot of the profession and highlights differences between
nurses in each field in terms of their ages, working practices, concerns and
aspirations. The survey found that learning disability nurses value the variety in
their work, but they are concerned about staff shortages and a lack of resources.
Keywords
Nursing: careers; profession, learning disabilities
Summary
Box 1 Survey respondents gave reasons why they
would recommend their specialty
`It is a social justice that we promote the interests
and health needs of people with learning
disability.'
`Learning disability is special � nurses are able to
enhance the lives of service users.'
`Learning disability nurses make a real difference,
and their skills are transferable to other roles.'
`There is a huge variety of work.'
although 84 per cent of the learning disability
nurses who responded to our survey would
recommend nursing as a career, this is a smaller
proportion than nurses working in other specialties.
and only 78 per cent of them would recommend
their field of practice to other nurses, compared
with 91 per cent of all nurses.
Box 1 lists some of the reasons why learning
disability nurses would recommend their specialty.
one reader suggested joint nurse and social work
training be considered because skills in learning
disability care are required in both fields. Some of the
reasons for not advocating the specialty included a
lack of job opportunities in the NhS and low morale.
annie Norman, the rCN's learning disability
adviser, says of those findings: `I am disappointed
but not surprised. I hear of nurses' anxieties about
the creation of generic learning disability posts
when I am out and about. Why recommend your
specialty when there is so much uncertainty about
its future?' emma Cooper, a learning disability nurse
specialist in sexual health at Southampton City
Some INTrIgUINg traits of learning disability nurses
have emerged from a survey of readers of specialist
nursing journals.
They are very enthusiastic about recommending
nursing as a career, but less keen on
recommending their own specialty to potential
nursing students. They value the variety in their
work highly, are mostly full-time staff members
and are especially concerned about a lack of
resources in their workplace. Few of them are
nurse prescribers.
These themes emerged from an rCN Publishing
survey which brought almost 2,000 responses
from the readers of our eight specialist journals,
covering settings such as mental health, cancer and
emergency care. readers' views are not necessarily
typical of all those in the profession, of course,
but their responses do give a snapshot of nurses'
feelings in the various specialties. It means we can
compare nurses in each field; their ages, working
hours, concerns and aspirations.

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