The diagnosis and management of dementia in primary care: Development, implementation and evaluation of a national training programme

General practitioners (GPs) and their teams are uniquely situated to achieve early diagnosis and optimal management in the community of dementia, yet there is evidence of under-diagnosis, under-response to established dementia, and inadequate management. An educational agenda has been proposed on the basis of a review of existing studies and a national training programme has been designed to test the feasibility, acceptability and relevance of this agenda for primary care workers in the UK. A nationwide programme of workshops was successfully implemented, using educational methods based on adult learning principles, and received a very positive response from a multidisciplinary audience. This educational agenda has been shown to be congruent with the reported experiences of primary care workers, particularly GPs. Community psychiatric nurses (CPN) emerge from the findings of this study as a professional group who might have an important educational role for other professionals in primary care.