Student to ‘talk up’ nursing with NHS ambassador role

A student whose dedication to spreading the word about how fellow nurses give great care for people with a learning disability will ‘talk the talk’ next month as an NHS ambassador.

Helen Morgan – from Nottingham – is in the second year of her degree in Learning Disability (LD) Nursing at the University of Northampton (UON).

She is a passionate advocate for the profession, her admiration for which started after a work experience placement. Helen explains: “While studying at college, I had a placement at a Leonard Cheshire home, which are places for adults with range of learning and physical disabilities. My love for the profession started there and then.

“Adapting care to suit the individual, finding ways to get around barriers to good care and helping people to live a full life, all the while knowing I was 100% making a difference. I found it so rewarding and no one day was ever the same.

“All this made me feel without question that this type of care was the right thing to be giving; I instantly knew it was the career for me.”

Now, she is taking her commitment to LD nursing to the next level after signing up to become a young people’s ambassador for the NHS.

This new role – which Helen will carry out in addition to her studying and work placements – is to assist with raising the profile of learning disability nursing to other young people.

She says of her new role: “Quite honestly, I feel really honoured to have this great opportunity. Even in 2020, ambassadors for LD are still very much needed. When people ask me what degree I am studying for, I always get questions like ‘Is it real nursing?’ and ‘Are you going to be a qualified nurse?’

“I totally understand people associate nursing with what you see in Holby City, but it is frustrating being asked such things. But where there is ignorance about LD nursing, that’s where you’ll find me, talking honestly how rewarding the profession is and ‘lifting the veil’ so others can have a peek at what we do.”

The ambassador scheme – run in conjunction with Speakers for Schools and NHS England and NHS Improvement – is part of a wider drive to recruit 50,000 new nurses across all fields. LD nursing in particular needs champions and advocates; the decrease in learning disability nursing numbers between September 2010 and September 2019 was 38%*

Helen’s duties will see her holding workshops for secondary school-age students, promoting the benefits of LD nursing and how strong a career option it is, as well as designing the content for the workshops.

She adds: “I hope in time – COVID permitting! – to make face-to-face visits to schools but for now the plan is to host these talks virtually. We don’t ‘go live’ until January so until then I’ll be getting the workshops ready to talk about what studying to be an LD nurse is like and some clinical background about the role and practice.

“Something I’m really interested in exploring with my workshops are the career options out there once you have the degree under your belt. It’s incredible how broad this is for an LD nurse because many of us aren’t tied to a hospital setting, we’re very much out there in the field in a multitude of settings.

“We find ourselves employed in special needs schools, rehabilitation units, mental health organisations or community crisis teams. The list is endless and with the – sadly – high vacancy rate at this point in time, a learning disability nurse never has to worry about having a quiet day!”

The importance of our Learning Disability Nursing degree

Helen concludes her story talking about why the UON’s degree is helping her: “There was something about Northampton that caught my attention. It’s not too big and not too small, it seemed a comfortable place to come to live in. Also, the LD programme at UON is awesome…the lecturing is great!

“I met with one of the senior lecturers and we just clicked. He became a learning disability nurse for the same reason I did – he worked with people who had an LD and just knew it was the right professional fit for him. I spoke the same language as him and the rest of the team. UON is just a great place to study.”

Find out more about Learning Disability Nursing at the University of Northampton on our course webpage.

*NAO report The NHS nursing workforce (5 Mar 2020).