One way of supporting people living with dementia is assisting them tolive in their homes (as opposed to being admitted to hospital or otherfacility) and providing them with a specialist service that responds tocrises. This makes it important to understand how best to organize suchcrisis response services. This study examines practitioners’ actions toreduce inpatient admissions among this population. Through interviews withhealthcare practitioners, we find that practitioners negotiate a complexintersection between (1) what constitutes a crisis in relation to the patientand/or the carer, (2) the demands of building a working relationship withboth the patient and their family carers, and (3) ensuring effectivecommunications with social services responsible for long-term communitysupport. Findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing admissions shouldbe based on a model of care that more closely maps practitioners’ relationaland bio-medical work in these services.