Learning disability nursing: reflections on history

Abstract

Recently, much has been written about the present and future of learning disability nursing in the UK but its past has been relatively neglected. This paper attempts to address this by recording an aspect of the history of learning disability nursing. The paper argues that learning disability nursing needs closer attention than it has previously received from historians of nursing. Documentary sources from the 1920s and 1940s are used to examine the relationship of learning disability nursing with the rest of the nursing profession. This paper represents part of a more comprehensive postgraduate study in progress. The two decades identified and reported on have been used because they are pivotal in understanding the marginalization of learning disability nursing within the profession of nursing. The paper concludes that by understanding their past nurse practitioners may more meaningfully place their contemporary practice in the context of a continuum of constant change.