One way of supporting people living with dementia is assisting them to live in their homes (as opposed to being admitted to hospital or other facility) and providing them with a specialist service that responds to crises. This makes it important to understand how best to organize such crisis response services. This study examines practitioners' actions to reduce inpatient admissions among this population. Through interviews with healthcare practitioners, we find that practitioners negotiate a complex intersection between (1) what constitutes a crisis in relation to the patient and/or the carer, (2) the demands of building a working relationship with both the patient and their family carers, and (3) ensuring effective communications with social services responsible for long-term community support. Findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing admissions should be based on a model of care that more closely maps practitioners' relational and bio-medical work in these services.
Keywords: community; dementia; health services; mental health; qualitative methods.