Reading List

A curated Reading List to support and extend learning from Dementia Awareness for Residential Care Staff.

This Reading List supports UK-wide dementia-aware practice. It includes NICE, NHS, CQC, and Skills for Care sources used across care learning, plus proportionate signposting to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland where dementia, capacity, deprivation of liberty, and social care frameworks differ.

1. Core Dementia Guidance

• NICE - Dementia: assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers (NG97)
  The main current NICE guideline covering person-centred care, support, care planning, staff training, and how dementia affects care across services.
  https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97

• NICE - Delirium: prevention, diagnosis and management in hospital and long-term care (CG103)
  Key guidance for recognising that sudden confusion, drowsiness, agitation, or change in attention may be delirium rather than dementia progression, including in long-term residential care and nursing homes.
  https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg103

• NHS - Symptoms of dementia
  A clear official overview of how dementia may affect memory, communication, behaviour, mobility, and daily life, including later-stage symptoms. Useful for grounding frontline staff in common patterns of change.
  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/symptoms-and-diagnosis/symptoms/

• Skills for Care - Dementia Training Standards Framework
  A current workforce framework that shows how broad dementia learning really is, from awareness and communication through to safeguarding, equality, law, and end of life dementia care. Especially helpful for managers and training leads.
  https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/resources/documents/Developing-your-workforce/Other-standards-and-frameworks/Dementia-Training-Standards-Framework.pdf

2. Communication, Distress, and Daily Support

• NHS - Communicating with someone with dementia
  Practical official advice on pacing, simple language, body language, listening, and reducing pressure during communication. Particularly useful for everyday care interactions in care homes.
  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/living-with-dementia/communication/

• NHS - Coping with dementia behaviour changes
  A practical guide to understanding behaviour change as possible communication and checking for triggers such as pain, infection, constipation, anxiety, routine disruption, and environmental stress.
  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/living-with-dementia/behaviour/

• NHS - Living well with dementia
  A helpful official overview of living with dementia, staying connected, and maintaining wellbeing, which can help staff think beyond tasks and symptoms alone.
  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/living-with-dementia/living-well/

3. Care Quality and Workforce Practice

• CQC - Health and social care support for people with dementia
  A current CQC review of people's experiences of dementia care in England, including person-centred care, staffing and training, family and carer involvement, inequalities, and service quality.
  https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/health-and-social-care-support-dementia

• CQC - People with dementia
  A current CQC State of Care focus page summarising pressures and risks in dementia care, including staffing, safeguarding, and safety concerns in care homes supporting many people with dementia.
  https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/major-report/state-care/2024-2025/focus/dementia

• Skills for Care - Other standards and frameworks
  This page signposts the current dementia training framework and related workforce capability frameworks that may support more advanced learning after this foundation course.
  https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Developing-your-workforce/Other-standards-and-frameworks.aspx

4. Planning Ahead and Four-Nations Signposting

• GOV.UK - Making decisions: a guide for people who work in health and social care
  A practical Mental Capacity Act guide for health and social care workers in England and Wales, including care staff, support workers, care home managers, and other frontline workers.
  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-social-care-workers-mental-capacity-act-decisions/making-decisions-about-your-health-welfare-or-finances

• NHS - Dementia and end of life planning
  Useful official reading on advance care planning, preferred place of care, palliative support, and helping families prepare for later stages of dementia.
  https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/living-with-dementia/palliative-care/

• Welsh Government - Dementia action plan progress update March 2025
  Useful Wales-facing context on the dementia action plan and the All Wales Dementia Care Pathway of Standards, which promotes a whole-system approach to dementia care.
  https://www.gov.wales/dementia-action-plan-progress-update-march-2025

• Scottish Government - Dementia in Scotland: Everyone's Story
  Scotland's 10-year dementia strategy, developed with people with lived experience and partners, setting the direction for dementia support and policy in Scotland.
  https://www.gov.scot/publications/new-dementia-strategy-scotland-everyones-story/

• gov.scot - Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 code materials
  A Scotland-facing starting point for incapacity-related decisions, useful because the legal framework differs from England and Wales even though person-centred dementia care principles remain important.
  https://www.gov.scot/publications/adults-incapacity-scotland-act-2000-code-practice-third-edition-practitioners-authorised-carry-out-medical-treatment-research-under-part-5-act/pages/1/

• Department of Health Northern Ireland - Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice and other key documents
  A practical Northern Ireland entry point for the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 and related capacity and deprivation of liberty materials.
  https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/mental-capacity-act-code-practice-and-other-key-documents

Use this Reading List to deepen understanding of dementia, communication, distress, care quality, workforce standards, planning ahead, and the legal context that may shape care decisions in different UK nations.