Dementia Care Training Resource from Alzheimer’s Society
A new report from the Alzheimer’s Society, ‘Because we’re human too: Why dementia training for care workers matters and how to deliver it’ demonstrates why high-quality mandatory dementia training for the social care workforce is imperative. It highlights the significant benefits that dementia training can bring to people’s lives, as well as to the wider health and care system.
Throughout the report, they draw on relevant expertise and experience, including insights from people living with dementia and their carers and leading academics in the field.
You can download a copy at https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-11/Because%20we%27re%20human%20too.pdf
Key recommendations from the report
National and local decision-makers, and care providers, must take urgent steps to improve dementia training, and help ensure that people living with dementia consistently receive the care they deserve.
Training in dementia made mandatory for the social care workforce
Governments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland should enact a statutory duty for all care providers registered with the relevant regulatory body in each nation (CQC in England, Social Care Inspectorate in Wales and Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority in Northern Ireland) to ensure their care staff undertake dementia training. Training content must be mapped to the relevant national framework in each nation (the Dementia Training Standards Framework in England, the Good Work Framework in Wales and the Dementia Learning and Development Framework in Northern Ireland).
This should be underpinned by sufficient funding, following the precedent in England of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on learning disabilities and autism.
Implementation of dementia-specific contractual and commissioning provisions
When commissioning adult social care services, local authorities in England and Wales, and Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland, should include a contractual provision obliging care providers to ensure care staff undertake dementia training mapped to the relevant national framework in each nation.
Implementation of evidence informed key components
When sourcing and implementing training, local authorities in England and Wales, Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland, and care providers should ensure all five key components for impactful dementia training, set out in section seven of the report, are factored in. This is in addition to ensuring training content maps to the relevant national framework.
