Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted an unprecedented level of change in service delivery across the NHS and nurses needed to adapt their practice quickly. However, to date, there has been little recognition of the challenges encountered during the pandemic by learning disability nurses. This article outlines a listening exercise that was undertaken to gather insights into the experiences and contributions of learning disability nurses during the first wave of the pandemic. Nine reflective group discussions were held via video conferencing with 26 learning disability nurses. Themes were extracted from these discussions. The findings revealed negative and positive effects of the pandemic on learning disability nursing practice. They show that learning disability nurses have responded to the pandemic with increased collaboration, creativity and commitment in an effort to maintain the health and well-being of service users. The insights gained from these reflective discussions enabled an understanding of how organisations and learning disability nurses managed the transformation of services during the first wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Learning Disability Practice is the property of RNCi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Highlights
In March 2020 healthcare services across the UK underwent rapid changes to service delivery due to the emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with a complete shift to working from home outside of inpatient care settings
Organisational adjustments Adapting to virtual service delivery At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the risks to individual staff members and service users, most routine care was made virtual
There was an immense effort by health and social care organisations providing services to people with learning disabilities to upskill staff and support them to manage the rapid changes to service delivery
Summary
In March 2020 healthcare services across the UK underwent rapid changes to service delivery due to the emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with a complete shift to working from home outside of inpatient care settings. Learning disability nurses experienced unique challenges with the changes in service delivery, since people with learning disabilities are more susceptible to mental and physical illness than the general population (Prasher and Kapadia 2006). During the pandemic the need for staff to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) and use digital methods of communication has resulted in direct barriers to care. Such stressors can increase behaviour by these patients described as challenging, which is itself known to reduce staff morale, in inpatient settings (Hughes and Anderson 2020)
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