A follow-up to the BBC dementia investigations
When the BBC aired its recent investigations into dementia care, many families felt something powerful: recognition. The moments shown on screen — confusion, distress, unmet needs, behaviours misunderstood or dismissed — were not unfamiliar. They were reflections of what thousands of families experience every day, often quietly and without support.
But what we have now learned is that these failures did not exist in isolation. They were symptoms of something much broader happening in the care system.
The Regulator Itself Was Struggling
Two major independent reviews examined the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Their findings were stark:
- A sharp decline in inspections
- Delays in publishing reports
- Loss of specialist dementia-related expertise
- Confusing assessment frameworks
- Over-complex scoring systems
- Outdated or unreliable ratings
- Weak consistency in recognising unsafe practice
For many families, this explains why warnings came too late, why poor care continued and why ratings often felt disconnected from lived reality. The safety net designed to protect people living with dementia had stretched too thin.
A Full Reset: CQC Announces a New Direction
In response, the CQC has proposed a complete rebuild of how England measures and understands care. This includes:
- Bringing back detailed rating characteristics
- Creating sector-specific frameworks for each type of service
- Ending the scoring model and returning to professional judgement
- Rebuilding specialist inspection teams
- Making inspection reports clearer and more useful
- Placing greater emphasis on emotional intelligence, relational care and culture
- Prioritising fairness, inclusion and lived experience
This is the biggest regulatory shift in more than a decade — and it is overdue.
However, regulation alone cannot improve what happens in a hallway, in a lounge, during personal care, or when a person living with dementia becomes distressed and cannot express why.
Better Regulation Still Needs Better Understanding
A new framework may change inspections, but it does not change:
- how carers interpret distress
- how families understand behaviour
- how emotional memory overrides logic
- how communication breaks down
- how safety is created through relationship, not tasks
- how people living with dementia experience the world
This is the gap no regulator can fill.
And it is the gap where Launex steps in with purpose.
Launex’s Role in the New Era of Dementia Care
As the CQC rewrites the standard, Launex rewrites the understanding.
For families, Launex provides:
- Clarity during a period of national regulatory change
- A structured pathway from confusion to confidence
- Tools to recognise good care beyond ratings
- Emotional intelligence for supporting a loved one safely and compassionately
For carers and professionals, the Launex Dementia Carer Specialist (LDCS) programme will offer:
- Deep, brain-based dementia knowledge
- Behaviour interpretation grounded in neuroscience
- Person-led communication and relational safety
- Emotional intelligence as a core competency
- Alignment with the new expectations inspectors will look for
Regulation checks quality.
Education creates it.
Moving Forward
The BBC programmes showed what can go wrong.
The CQC investigations showed why.
The upcoming reforms show what is changing.
Launex exists to ensure that people living with dementia — and the families who love them — experience the change where it matters most: in daily life, human connection, dignity and understanding.
As the system evolves, we will continue equipping families and preparing Dementia Carer Specialists to meet the future of dementia care with clarity, compassion and confidence.
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