Developing occupational standards: a learning disabilities project.

Occupational standards are often seen as cumbersome and inappropriate to a vocational curriculum such as nursing. However, the term fitness for practice is once more being used to focus the minds of educationalists and practitioners in healthcare delivery on the goal in preparing practitioners for the future. The project reported here was guided jointly by staff from a higher education institution and an NHS trust and involved practitioners in designing occupational standards with a view to using them in practice and incorporating them into the preregistration curriculum. The pivotal structure in this process was the focus group which, with tenacity and commitment, designed, developed and structured standards which were realistic and relevant to healthcare delivery.