How Dementia Enabling is your Care Setting?
Is Your Care Home Dementia Friendly? — Environmental Assessment & Audit Tool
A comprehensive, evidence-based environmental audit designed to evaluate how well a care home's physical environment supports people living with dementia. This 23-page assessment tool enables managers, staff teams, and external assessors to systematically walk through every area of the home and score it against 97 detailed criteria across eight key domains.
Developed by Mac Research and Consultancy Limited, the tool combines The King's Fund Enhancing the Healing Environment framework with the latest research on dementia-friendly design (2024–2025), translating complex design evidence into practical, observable indicators that any assessor can apply.
What's covered:
Meaningful interaction and purposeful activity — welcoming environments, furniture arrangement, social spaces, and opportunities for engagement
Wellbeing and quality of life — natural light, adjustable lighting, access to nature, outdoor spaces, and overnight facilities for relatives
Eating and drinking — traditional kitchen design, visible appliances, domestic-scale dining, contrasting crockery, and mealtime choice
Mobility and safe movement — flooring, handrails, rest points, circular walking routes, landmarks, and fall prevention
Continence and personal hygiene — toilet visibility, high-contrast fittings, signage, bathroom accessibility, and mirror management
Wayfinding and orientation — sight lines, signage standards, personalised doors, colour psychology, themed areas, and use of yellow
Calm, safety and security — noise reduction, clutter management, disguised restricted areas, quiet spaces, and hazard control
Enhanced dementia-specific design elements — progressive disclosure, sensory cues, memory boxes, destination features, healing gardens, and domestic task opportunities
Each criterion includes italic "Look for" guidance describing exactly what to observe, measure, or check — making the tool accessible to assessors at any level of experience. A five-point scoring system with clear performance interpretation enables benchmarking, while the built-in action plan template supports prioritised improvement with estimated costs and timescales drawn from current research evidence.
Whether you are conducting a baseline assessment of a new or existing care home, preparing for regulatory inspection, or planning a phased environmental improvement programme, this tool provides the structured, evidence-based framework to identify what works, what needs attention, and where to start.
