Making a huge difference

It was great to see the nurses behind the Health Equalities Framework (HEF) receive the RCNi Learning Disability Nursing award.

Dave Atkinson, Phil Boulter, Crispin Hebron and Gwen Moulster have been influential in the profession for years, leading from the front and helping to transform countless people’s lives.

The HEF is a significant piece of work that can make a huge difference to the lives of vulnerable people by making sure that they can access all the services available to the rest of the population.

Its premise is that if you know about the determinants of inequalities in health, you can measure them and then address aspects that are amenable to change.

Where the HEF is being applied, people with learning disabilities benefit from nurses using a systematic, outcome-driven tool that is improving their health and lives. What an achievement.

Elsewhere in your journal this month, Josh Kernohan has completed a literature review about seclusion and how to minimise it.

Matthew Joel and Holly Marcellino describe a project to increase access to bowel cancer screening, and Gerard Crotty identifies key factors in the successful transition of young people to adult services.

David O’Driscoll’s opinion piece about envy is thought-provoking, as is the article by Jim Blair and Dave Ferguson on the lack of strategic leadership at the heart of the learning disability nursing profession.

Next month’s Learning Disability Practice will have a different look and a new website – let me know what you think.