I think as a qualified nurse you need to get grounding and you need to start small but
then start looking at all the diverse opportunities.
You could work with prison service you could work in a hospital and some of my colleagues
work in maternity services and health visiting, all sorts of things with all sorts of rolls.
I’m a learning disability sexual health specialist nurse, based at the New Croft centre
in Newcastle.
I work for Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust as a community team lead
I’m a community clinical manager for people with learning disabilities and also older
adults in mental health services.
And I’m primary care liaison nurse and that’s in County Durham.
I’m learning disabilities community nurse working in Cumbria and I also support the
strategic development of health services for people with disabilities in Cumbria
Over the past 12 years I’ve worked in a role as clinic nurse specialist, a Macmillan
post.
So I do things like joint clinics with GP’s so me and the GP will do annual health checks
with people with disabilities and I work with nurse practitioners and things as well.
A whole variety really, a lot of educational work and so we do the clinic and then I tend
to do a lot of training as well with staff and training myself in terms of the sexual
health elements of my jobs.
The students come here for 3 years; they spend 50% of their time in practice working as a
student nurse and then 50% of their time here.
So it’s a pretty intensive course, because at the end of it they don’t just come out
with a degree they also come out with a registration for being a learning disability nurse so two
qualifications going on simultaneously.
The course has really taught me about a lot about how to care for people with learning
disabilities, it taught me to not only just support them but to look beyond their needs
and be there and be an advocate for them it also taught me about inner qualities that
people with learning disabilities face in which sadly some of them are de-humanized
so they have a label, that should not be there and it’s important that we overcome that
stigma to make sure that in the future people with learning disabilities can receive the
care and respect that everyone is entitled to.
It benefits me knowing that somebody is coming and they like looking out for us they care
about us and they care about me health and me well fare.
And the more help you get the better it is for you in life.
And I think as a learning disability nurse the scope of if your practice allows you to
almost be quite creative in terms of what job you go for because there are people with
learning disabilities everywhere people in all walks of life and across the health service
we need specialisms and be able to meet those individual needs.
You see there is more interest now from other fields in learning disabilities nurses going
and working within there.
The recognition that skills that you learned are transferable into mental health nursing,
into children and young people nursing into working with older people with things like
dementia, or stroke.
There is so much opportunity I mean like myself here I’ve landed a job that I wanted cause
I was here as a management student.
I knew exactly what I wanted and I was able to get all of the experiences that I needed
so I could take that into my interview We have to persuade other professionals for
example, about the rights of people with learning disabilities so we have to be quite assertive
as well so to somebody a learning disability nurse has to be somebody who is very creative
who is willing to stand up for the rights of others.
It’s not, it’s not always easy but actually I think a lot of people kind of appreciate
your own unique insight.
When somebody has a life limiting, life threatening diagnosis.
You only get one chance to get it right for the person and the people who are involved
in supporting that person and their families as well.
I think the best part of the role is when you get that phone call from a delighted parent
that kind of said thank you for your involvement it really made a difference.
I think probably because of the inequality that people face and the feeling of job satisfaction
come from you actually look and see you are helping someone improve their lives and wellbeing.
I think it is a vast career path.
I think you can it’s so many branches to it so many ways you can go so many places
that will it is like inception now there are different learning disability nurses in all
areas and it’s great.
The course opened my eyes up and showed there is a lot of discrimination, people with learning
disabilities don’t often have a fair deal in our society and it’s really the learning
disability helps makes people's lives much better.
That’s one thing I’ve learned more than anything.
The job of a learning disability nurse is amazing, it’s a different job every day
and every day that I do this job I learn more and more and I meet some incredible people
that have got an awful lot of challenges to deal with people who wants to overcome those
challenges and by us offering a little bit of support at the right place at the right
time we can make a difference and that is the most amazing feeling to go home at night
knowing that you've made a difference.
I think I would say go for it, the skies the limit in learning disability, the skies the
limit in learning disability nursing alone.