Project 8: Improving the quality of dementia/NDD-specific education for the multidisciplinary health and care workforce: evidence review to inform future policy 

Background:

Caring for individuals with dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases demands specific knowledge and skills. Understanding how this expertise is taught and acquired, from undergraduate training to continuing professional development, is crucial for integrated and effective care. Spending time with people living with dementia has been shown to enhance healthcare students’ knowledge and attitudes towards dementia. We want to develop evidence to help policymakers develop new knowledge and skills frameworks.

Aims and objectives:

We want to understand how policy on knowledge and skills development in the health and social care workforce caring for people with dementia and neurodegenerative diseases supports or hinders workforce development. This will help us to understand how and where changes could be made to the system. We will also examine how current evidence could inform future policy development and educational delivery in this area.

Methods:

We will start by looking at the current context, including a brief overview of workforce sectors, training programmes, and the knowledge and skills needed to work with people living with dementia and neurodegenerative diseases. We will then highlight where gaps in knowledge and skills are preventing effective care. Our evidence search will include both academic evidence in databases and relevant UK health policies and strategies. As well as looking at documents, we will conduct some focus groups with sector experts. Following this, we will propose some alternative approaches to workforce training and address gaps in current policy. Finally, we will consider the potential outcomes of our suggested policy changes.

Policy relevance and dissemination:

Training plays a pivotal role in shaping the future health and care workforce’s ability to deliver inclusive, high-quality care for people living with dementia or neurodegenerative diseases in England. It can reduce staff turnover and enhance the quality of care. English policymakers aim to boost health and social care workforce capacity and skills by introducing a knowledge and skills framework building upon the Care Certificate. Our research could help to inform the development of this framework. The research findings will be disseminated through a policy brief and academic papers.