Recovery-focused mental health nursing care has been at the forefront of mental health strategic development in Scotland since the 2006 Scottish Government report on mental health nursing services. The introduction of recovery-focused training for mental health nurses has to some extent helped shift the culture of mental health care away from being paternalistic and towards being more appropriately rights-focused and person-centred. This article explores the development of recovery-focused training in Scotland, with a focus on dementia care, and the attempts that have been made to measure recovery-focused training and its effect on patient care.