Doors opening for a RNLD

This September will mark my 20th Year as a learning disability nurse, and I can honestly say that I have enjoyed working as a nurse, and have found it a fulfilling career that has opened different doors along the way.

My first role was within a residential for children with learning disabilities as a deputy home manager. When I started many of the children had left because they were adults, and so it became a respite service, this was due to the different values emerging to ensure that children with disabilities remained at home with support.

I then started at a further education college for young adults with learning disabilities and complex needs, which had a residential facility. During the day there was around 65 students, and over night there was around 30. I ensured that all the health needs were met, and I remember the medication round being really long due to the complexities that the young adults presented with. This included epilepsy, diabetes, kidney failure, muscle spasms to name a few.

When I first started there wasn't any hoists, so there was a lot of manual handling. After a few years manual lifting as stopped and manual handling was introduced. To support this I completed a moving and handling trainer course, so that I could provide the training to staff.

This led to my third role, working with social services as a moving and handling advisor. This role was a generic post, so not just working with people with learning disabilities and gave me experience of working in the community, holding a case load and working autonomously.

Following maternity leave I returned to the further education college, as the shifts and part time work suited my new role as a mum. Then 9 years ago I started working at Oxleas, firstly as a community nurse within complex health. Within this post I developed skills within end of life care, teaching care staff, mental health and managing risks. This led to me returning to University to undertake a degree in Mental Health Work, I recognised that my skills were within complex physical health, so completing this course not only allowed me to develop skills in this area, but to also then successfully apply for another role as a Specialist Mental Health Nurse in Learning disabilities.

After two years in this post I had the opportunity to work within the corporate nursing team for Oxleas as the Lead Nurse for Practice Improvement. This January marked my third year in this post, and during this time I have gained a greater understanding of the business side of the NHS. I have led on many trust wide projects including implementing nurse revalidation, staff flu campaign and introduction of additional resuscitation equipment for our bedded services.

I have really enjoyed working with nurses from all disciplines to improve practice, and have a great sense of pride when people realise that I am a learning disability nurse. On occasions I have been asked whether there are opportunities as a learning disability nurse, which I strongly answer 'YES'. As a learning disability nurse my foundation training was to provide holistic care to an individual person working alongside their families/carers. I have sound clinical knowledge, and I have now developed my skills to project manage and be a supportive adaptive manager.

I have almost completed a masters in healthcare leadership, which I​ hope will lead to many more doors opening........