Interpreting Nursing Education Policy: The Marginalisation of Learning Disability Nursing in Nurse Education

ABSTRACT Background This study examines the impact the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Standards of Proficiency for Registered Nurses and their interpretation within Higher Educational institutions within the broader historical and professional context of learning disability nursing. Despite existing evidence on genericism in nurse education, there remains a significant gap on how discourse, power, and institutional interpretation influence the position of learning disability nursing. Methods To address this gap, the study used an interpretivist qualitative design using semi‑structured interviews with ten learning disability nurse academics. Foucault's discourse analysis was utilised to explore how policy language, institutional processes, and historical narratives are constructed and enacted. Findings The findings reveal that policy ambiguity, interpretation variations, and marginalisation discourses interact across macro, meso, and micro levels to create and reinforce the peripheral positioning of learning disability nursing within nurse education. Conclusions This research makes an original contribution by demonstrating how discourse operates as a mechanism of power within regulatory policy, revealing the multi‑factored processes through which structural marginalisation is reproduced. Finally, evidence‑based recommendations are made for strengthening the visibility and protection of learning disability nursing in future educational frameworks.