Safety recommendation
HSIB recommends that NHS England and NHS Improvement develops the ongoing work to improve the retention of learning disability nurses, in line with the intent of the All-England plan for learning disability nursing.
Response:
We welcome the publication of this report which readily identifies some valuable points of learning for our health and care system.
As part of our ongoing commitment to addressing the challenges for the learning disability nursing profession, in March 2020, NHS England in joint partnership with Health Education England published the ‘All England plan for Learning Disability nursing’.
The plan is to be delivered over 5 years and is founded on the four guiding principles of Attract, Retain, Develop and Celebrate. Each principle is supported by an array of dedicated workstreams, and our overarching ambition to increase the number of learning disability nurses entering the profession, while retaining those currently in practice.
In respect of the HSIB report: Medicine omissions in learning disability secure units. Our ‘retain’ principle includes a number of workstreams, each of which are aimed at improving the retention of learning disability nurses.
A particular focus of our retain work is aimed at delivering a new continuing professional development offer for the learning disability nursing workforce.
This includes the introduction of a new early career fellowship which we have developed in partnership with the Foundation of Nursing studies. The aim of the fellowship is to engage early career learning disability nurses, who have been qualified between 1-4 years, to develop skills and competencies in transformational leadership and culture change.
A further workstream relates to the creation of three new enhanced awards for learning disability nurses working in either, specialist inpatient settings, specialist community settings, or within acute and primary care. Our aim in creating these programmes is to provide mid-career learning disability nurses with the opportunity to hone their expertise in one of three specialist areas of practice, and in doing so, generate additional expertise, knowledge, and skills.
In addition to the above, we are currently designing a training package which will be available to both mental health and learning disability nurses. The training will equip both of these groups of nurses with an enhanced knowledge about the mental health needs of people with a learning disability. The training will enhance collaborative working across these fields of practice and will serve as a useful incentive for retaining those nurses who are seeking further career advancement and qualifications.
Prior to the advent of the All-England plan for Learning Disability Nursing there was a paucity of professional development opportunities available to learning disability nurses across the career trajectory. As such, these new offers, all of which are funded, are reinvigorating the learning disability nursing workforce, and are supporting retention.
In addition to these workstreams, a key focus of the plan is to create a social movement for change for learning disability nursing, and to help achieve this we have established a bi-annual learning disability nursing symposium, a new national website for learning disability nursing, and a host of other initiatives all of which are aimed at engaging with and raising the profile of the profession.
View a copy of the All-England Plan for Learning Disability Nursing.
Response received on 1 September 2022.