Commentary on “Factors influencing the quality of care learning disabled patients receive in hospital”

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Durrant’s paper “Factors influencing the quality of care learning disabled patients receive in hospital”.

The commentary identifies examples of practice in acute hospital provision consistent with the themes outlined in Durrant’s paper.

The themes identified in Durrant’s paper are easily recognisable. At the same time, there is a need to more fully understand the complexity of acute hospitals and to involve mainstream health-care staff in development and delivery of training on learning disability. Consideration should be given to the development of new specialist roles.

The commentary provides a practice perspective arising from wide clinical experience.