Communication in Care

Communication in care training is delivered at your workplace or live online. Half day or full day. The practical skills your team needs to genuinely hear the people they support, not just talk at them.

Course Overview

One of the most persistent and damaging assumptions in care is that if someone cannot speak, they cannot communicate. It is wrong, and when it goes unchallenged, it leads to care that ignores what the individual is telling the people around them through every means available: facial expression, body language, behaviour, eye contact, and the absence of these things.

Communication in Care Training addresses this directly. It challenges the habits and assumptions that get in the way of genuinely hearing the people being supported, and it gives care staff the practical skills to communicate more effectively across a wide range of needs, abilities, and situations.

The other gap this course consistently closes is around barriers to communication. Many care workers are aware, in theory, that barriers exist. Fewer have been supported to identify them in real time and adjust their approach accordingly. A care worker who speaks too quickly to someone with a processing difficulty, uses jargon with someone whose first language is not English, or has a conversation at the wrong time of day for someone living with dementia is not communicating effectively, regardless of how well-intentioned they are. This course reflects the expectations of the CQC under Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care and Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect, and maps to Care Certificate Standard 6: Communication.

Course Details

  • Duration: Half day (3 to 4 hours) or full day (6 hours), depending on group needs
  • Delivery: Face-to-face in-house or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Certificate: CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Communication in Care
  • Awarding organisations: CPD-Accredited
  • Validity: No formal expiry. A refresher is recommended every 1 to 3 years, or sooner following changes to guidance, legislation, or workplace practice.
  • Group size: Maximum 12 learners per trainer

Who This Course Is For

This course is right for anyone working in a care setting who communicates with individuals, families, colleagues, or professionals, which in practice means everyone.

  • Care assistants and support workers in care homes, supported living, and domiciliary care
  • Senior carers and team leaders
  • Health and social care staff across residential, nursing, and community settings
  • Staff supporting individuals with additional communication needs, including those living with dementia, learning disabilities, stroke, autism, or sensory loss
  • New starters completing the Care Certificate
  • Experienced staff who want a structured refresher

For teams supporting individuals with dementia where communication is a specific focus, our Dementia Awareness training covers that ground in depth and pairs well with this course.

Not sure which combination is right for your team? Get in touch, and we’ll help you work it out before you commit.

Why This Communication in Care Training Matters

Communication failures are a recurring factor in complaints, safeguarding concerns, and serious incidents across health and social care. The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 require providers to ensure care is person-centred and that individuals are treated with dignity and respect. Both depend entirely on communication.

CQC inspectors routinely ask individuals and families about their experience of being listened to and understood. Under Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care and Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect, inspectors look at whether staff adapt their approach to individual needs, whether consent is genuinely sought and understood, and whether information is shared accurately and safely. A service where communication is strong tends to do well across multiple key questions. A service where it is weak tends to show that weakness everywhere.

This course maps to Care Certificate Standard 6: Communication, updated by Skills for Care in March 2025. If your team is working through the Care Certificate or refreshing it against the updated criteria, our Care Certificate UK Guide covers what the current standards require across all 16 standards.

What the Day Covers

All content reflects CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, Care Certificate Standard 6, and current Skills for Care guidance throughout. Topics covered include:

  • What communication is and why it is inseparable from safe and person-centred care
  • Verbal, non-verbal, written, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
  • Non-verbal communication: understanding that the absence of speech is not the absence of communication
  • Recognising barriers to communication: environmental, physical, sensory, cognitive, cultural, and linguistic
  • Adjusting communication in real time: pace, tone, language, timing, and environment
  • Active listening: what it looks like, what it does not look like, and why it matters
  • Communication and consent: how poor communication compromises genuine consent
  • Supporting individuals with additional communication needs: dementia, learning disability, stroke, autism, and sensory loss
  • Professional boundaries and confidentiality in communication
  • Information sharing within care teams: handovers, records, and escalation
  • Managing difficult conversations: delivering unwelcome information and supporting emotional responses
  • The role of communication in recognising and raising safeguarding concerns

Every course is also built to include your organisation’s documentation, handover processes, and information-sharing procedures as standard.

How the Course Is Delivered

This course is available face-to-face at your workplace or chosen venue, or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Both formats are fully interactive. Online delivery is a live session with the same discussion, scenarios, and trainer engagement as the room-based version, not a pre-recorded module.

Groups are capped at 12 to ensure every learner gets sufficient time for discussion and reflection. Every session is built around your working environment, your client group, and your internal processes. We also design each course to incorporate the specific communication needs of individuals in your service, your documentation and handover procedures, and any practice areas your team finds particularly challenging. If you haven’t reviewed your communication standards recently, we can discuss what that might look like during the enquiry process.

Delivery includes:

  • Scenario-based discussion drawn from real care situations, including non-verbal communication, missed barriers, and difficult conversations
  • Reflective exercises that encourage learners to examine their own communication habits honestly
  • Practical strategies that can be applied immediately in role
  • Coverage of your internal documentation, handover, and information sharing processes

Certification and Validity

On completion, learners receive a CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Communication in Care.

There is no formal expiry, but a refresher is recommended every 1 to 3 years, or sooner following changes to guidance, legislation, or workplace practice. Many organisations align this with their Care Certificate induction programme or annual mandatory training cycle. Our Dementia Awareness training pairs naturally with this course for teams where communication needs related to cognitive decline are a particular focus.

Why Organisations Book With Prima Cura

Most training providers arrive with a course. We arrive with yours.

Before the day, we gather information about your workplace: your incident reporting forms, your internal procedures, the specific hazards your team actually faces. On the day, your trainer works that into every scenario, every discussion, every practical exercise. If your staff work in a care home, they’re not practising on hypothetical office workers. If your team are lone workers, that context shapes how the session runs.

It means the training lands. Not because it was well-delivered in a generic sense, but because it was relevant to the people in the room and the situations they’ll actually encounter.

A few other things that matter to the organisations that book with us:

  • 98.9% learner satisfaction across all Prima Cura courses
  • All trainers hold Enhanced DBS certificates and maintain ongoing CPD
  • We advise honestly on the qualification level at the enquiry stage. If a different course is a better fit for your workforce, we’ll say so before you book, not after

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Where We Deliver

We deliver in-house training at your workplace or chosen venue across Manchester, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West. We also deliver nationally across England, including North England, South England, London, and Surrey.

All sessions are led by experienced Prima Cura Training instructors. Groups are capped at 12 per trainer to protect the quality of hands-on learning.

Our associate network means we can deliver across England. You can meet the team on our Associates page.

FAQs

Does this course cover communication with non-verbal individuals?

Yes, and it is one of the most important parts of the course. Non-verbal does not mean non-communicative. Individuals who cannot speak communicate through facial expression, body language, behaviour, eye contact, gesture, and many other means. This course challenges the assumption that speech is required for communication and gives learners practical tools to recognise and respond to what non-verbal individuals are telling them.

Does the course cover communication with people living with dementia?

Yes. Dementia affects how people process language, retrieve words, and interpret what is being said to them, often long before verbal communication is lost entirely. This course covers how to adapt communication for people living with dementia: slowing pace, using simple and consistent language, avoiding correction, paying close attention to non-verbal cues, and timing conversations to suit the individual’s best time of day. It also covers how to interpret behaviour as communication when verbal expression has become unreliable.

Does the course cover Care Certificate Standard 6?

Yes. The content maps directly to Care Certificate Standard 6: Communication, updated by Skills for Care in March 2025, making it suitable for new starters working through their Care Certificate and for experienced staff refreshing against the current criteria. Our Care Certificate UK Guide covers what all 16 updated standards require.

Can this be adapted for specific settings or client groups?

Yes. We regularly adapt content for dementia care environments, learning disability services, end-of-life care settings, and services supporting individuals with autism or sensory loss. Tell us about your team, and we will build the session around them.

Related Courses

Book or Enquire

Book your training or request a quote

Tell us your team size and your sector. We’ll come back with a quote, the right advice on qualification level, and a straight answer on whether this is the best course for your team.

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Our Commitment to Quality and Compliance

At Prima Cura Training, all courses reflect current UK guidance and best practice. All trainers are experienced professionals with relevant qualifications and ongoing CPD. Because many of the organisations we support work with vulnerable individuals, all trainers hold Enhanced DBS checks.

This course is reviewed against updates from the Care Quality Commission, Skills for Care, and current UK legislation, including the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and the Care Act 2014.

You can read more on our Quality Assurance and Compliance page.

Reviewed by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training 25+ years in health and social care | 15+ years as a trainer | Last reviewed: June 2026 | Next review: June 2027

This page is for general guidance only and reflects UK legislation and best practice current at the date of review. It does not constitute legal or clinical advice. Providers should ensure their communication policies, practices, and training programmes reflect their specific regulatory obligations and the assessed needs of the individuals they support. Prima Cura Training accepts no liability for decisions made based on this content alone.

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