Following the tweet chat held on the 30th October, @WeLDNurses would like to extend a big thank you to Chris Morris from @Pen_CRU for guest hosting his first chat. Here are Chris’ thoughts reflecting on his hosting experience and summarising content brought up throughout the chat:

This was the first tweet chat @Pen_CRU hosted, and was a fabulous experience. An hour goes rapidly in this context! Brilliant to have so many bright people sharing ideas. A few themes that emerged are below. 

I suspect we all share the same views, and our challenge is to spread the word, and more importantly good practice in communication with people who have learning disabilities. We perceived that Learning Disability Nurses could play a key role in such initiatives. 

We at PenCRU would be happy to share the parent-inspired training package we developed over several years – contact details below (or find us on Twitter). Challenges mentioned were ‘same challenges are found across services with both children and adults with LD. Resources, staffing levels, time, training. Staff may also lack confidence in this area due to lack of experience and knowledge’. Suggestions for improving communication and care were hospital and/or communication passports for children with LD, badges, traffic light systems, and making sure staff seek to use them, especially in emergency settings, and also more specialised methods that require training such as PECS Picture Exchange Communication Systems and Makaton. There was also a nice reminder ‘to treat them like children, laugh, keep it simple and get on their level’. 

There was huge support for training ‘all staff’ on communication with children with LD in an inpatient setting, including medical, clinical, clerical and catering/ cleaning staff. The only question was whether it should be mandatory, as some have a negative reaction to training when it is mandatory. There was mention of monthly learning disability awareness sessions, and taking opportunities for including disability awareness training in other study days to solve this issue. The Education Outcomes Framework refers to NHS staff developing values and behaviours, through training, to enhance the quality of the patient experience. Surely a mandate for training to improve communication to improve experience of care? It was highlighted that ‘every person working for the NHS will get training in autism and learning disability awareness’. Though someone commented that awareness wasn’t enough as staff need skills and competence.

Special recognition to Kerri and Zoe from the Student Subgroup of the Scottish Learning Disability Nursing Network, whose excellent contributions merited central status on the chat word cloud! You are an amazing community of wonderfully passionate people.Thank you for allowing us to host and share some ideas that many of you already know. 

If you're interested in the training get in contact via pencru@exeter.ac.uk or twitter, or by visiting http://www.pencru.org/projectsmeetings/researchprojects/hospcomms/ or http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/research/hospital-communications (Pen CRU acknowledge funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care of the South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC). The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care.)