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.

支持痴呆症患者的一种方法是帮助他们住在自己的家中（而不是住进医院或其他机构），并为他们提供应对危机的专业服务。这使得了解如何最好地组织此类危机应对服务变得很重要。本研究考察了从业者为减少该人群的住院人数而采取的行动。通过对医疗保健从业者的采访，我们发现从业者在 (1) 构成危机的因素之间存在一个复杂的交叉点关于患者和/或照顾者，(2) 与患者及其家人照顾者建立工作关系的需求，以及 (3) 确保与负责长期社区支持的社会服务机构进行有效沟通。研究结果表明，旨在减少入院的政策应该基于一种更密切地映射从业者在这些服务中的关系和生物医学工作的护理模式。