Dutch large-scale dementia-care environments: A village within the community

The scope of this article is as follows. First, it summarizes the development of, and some characteristics of Dutch large-scale residential/nursing care homes, and dementia care, from the perspective of the changing landscape of policy on housing, home-care services, and financial priorities. Second, it provides a short description (to supplement a PowerPoint photo tour) of the largest care home in the Netherlands, designed by Herman Hertzberger, 35 years ago. It has 520 beds, and pioneered the ‘village within the community’ concept of care. The features of this prizing winning care home setting will be described as they relate to current thinking about good dementia care, and against the backdrop of concerns coming out of the pilot projects introducing ‘small-scale group living dementia care environments’.The view taken in this article is that the traditional large-scale accommodation can offer a safe and valuable home-like environment, as well as other advantages, and that there will always be a need for them (albeit with adaptations).