Learning disability nurses should concentrate their efforts on health to create better services across the whole of the NHS, say Dave Atkinson and colleagues from the UK Learning Disability Consultant Nurse Network

It has been found in recent years that the healthcare needs of people with learning disabilities have not always been fully met. The authors suggest that this situation can be improved if specialist learning disability nurses are more involved in mainstream services. They argue that learning disability nurses should focus their efforts on health, rather than social care activities, and suggest that there are further groups of people in society who, while not having a learning disability, could benefit from the interventions of this skilled professional group.