“It’s a privilege to support people to live in the community with their loved ones, ensuring that should they ever need more help we can provide this quickly alongside colleagues from health, social care, and private providers.

“Building on quality of life and supporting individuals to pursue their goals and dreams is the most important part of what we do as an Intensive Support Team, and I am incredibly proud of the service we provide for the people of Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.”

“I love being a Community Nurse as every day is like a new day, you can never plan to have the day you thought you had planned. You get to work within a MDT with passionate people who want to improve and help people with their lives. You work alongside main stream services in improving processes and knowledge. A community Nurse has to have a good network of people that they know and I have to say I have always been the go to person in the team to know the right person to talk to across services.

“Annual health check support, end of life support, palliative care support, medication support, and the list goes on…

“You meet lovely people along with their fantastic families and carers.

A Community Nurse’s life in the learning Disability field is varied, full of surprises, rewarding, fun and full on. I wouldn’t want my day work changed, it is a real opportunity to change people’s lives.”

Tameside & Glossop, Greater Manchester.
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

I consider it to be a real honour to be a community Learning disability nurse. Since relocating from Ireland in 2012, I have worked in a variety of settings and community nursing is definitely my forte! I work within a dynamic multi-disciplinary team, helping to deliver a range of support and interventions, all delivered with the intention of enabling people to achieve optimum independence and to lead enriched, healthy lives.

One of my passions is being part of a drive to improve the involvement, care, and treatment for the people I support within generic services across Greater Manchester. I feel strongly about changing attitudes and behaviours, enabling colleagues from all disciplines to gain a more informed understanding of the needs of people with learning disabilities. By delivering training across different types of provider forums and networks it becomes possible to drive these improvements. In my role, I observe that there are significant opportunities to harness people’s experiences of local services in order to shape and inform national policy and strategy, and ultimately help enhance the care people receive. As a community nurse learning disability nurse meaningful engagement and co-production is at the heart of what we do.

A day in the life of a community learning disability nurse is almost impossible to describe. It can change by the hour! What I can say, is that we are a skilled collective who are able to think outside of the box in order to achieve effective health outcomes for the people and families we support. My advice to my younger self when starting out a learning disability nurse… Don’t ever be afraid to challenge!! I am proud of the work myself and the team I work in deliver, and it is a pleasure to be a part of the wider national network of passionate learning disability nurses!