Good communication skills are just the beginning for all the skills which care workers need. Without them, it would be really difficult to establish effective relationships with people who use the services. These skills are something which you learn, without training it would be difficult to listen effectively to somebody talking about a difficult experience or sensitive topic, break bad news as sensitively as possible, or communicate with people who have communication difficulties, such as people who suffer from dementia, Parkinsons disease, or following a stroke. It is especially important that staff who work in care homes have good communication skills, this is because a high proportion of people living in the care homes will have problems that can cause difficulty when communicating.

For most people living in care homes, especially the ones who do not see family members or friend regularly, interactions with the staff are their main source of communication. The problem is, studies have shown that the opportunities are limited, an Alzheimers society survey of 12 care homes found that the average person living in a care home spent only two minutes speaking or interacting with staff or other residents over a six hour period of observation. This excludes time spent on care tasks like being helped to eat or get dressed. Even during these tasks, interaction can be limited as the worker wants to hurry it up and sometimes they don’t greet the person, or even explain when they are going to do. Some staff will do it without even obtaining the persons permission, they may also use patronising speech, which features inappropriate personal pronouns such as 'we' and 'our' instead of 'you' and 'your'. Other examples of poor communication include making critical comments about the resident or talking about things which the resident is excluded from. This may be because the