Polebank Hall Care Home

What families say

Visitors often comment on the relaxed atmosphere here. There's a sense that staff have time to really see residents as individuals, responding to their particular needs without that institutional hurry you sometimes find elsewhere.

Based on 5 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness70
• Activities & engagement60
• Food quality60
• Healthcare65
• Management & leadership72
• Resident happiness68

What inspectors found

Inspected 2018-02-21 · Report published 2018-02-21 · Inspected 4 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for safety at its June 2021 inspection. This represents an improvement from a previous Requires Improvement rating. The published report does not include specific observations about medicines management, falls prevention, infection control, or staffing levels. A monitoring review in July 2023 found no new safety concerns. The specific actions taken to move from Requires Improvement to Good in this domain are not detailed in the available report text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating after a previous Requires Improvement is reassuring, but the absence of specific inspection detail means you cannot rely on the published findings alone. Good Practice research consistently identifies night staffing as the point where safety most often slips in smaller homes like this one with 30 beds. Agency staff covering regular shifts can undermine the consistency that safety depends on. You will need to ask directly about overnight staffing numbers and how much of the rota is covered by permanent employees rather than agency workers.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that night staffing ratios and reliance on agency staff are among the strongest predictors of safety incidents in care homes. Homes with stable, familiar night teams have significantly better safety records.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not a template. Count how many shifts overnight were covered by permanent staff versus agency workers, and ask the specific ratio of carers to residents after 8pm."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for effectiveness at its June 2021 inspection. This domain covers training, care planning, healthcare access, and nutrition. The published report does not include specific findings about dementia training content, care plan quality, GP access arrangements, or food provision. No observations or testimony on these topics are available in the published text. The improvement from Requires Improvement to Good indicates that earlier shortcomings in this domain were addressed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness is where dementia care either works or fails for your parent on a practical, day-to-day level. Our Good Practice evidence base highlights that care plans should function as living documents updated regularly with family input, not paperwork filed and forgotten. For a home specialising in dementia, staff training matters enormously: not just a one-off certificate but regular, updated learning about non-verbal communication and behaviour as expression. Food quality is also a genuine marker of how well a home knows the people living there. The inspection does not give you specific evidence on any of these points, so you will need to ask directly.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that homes where care plans are reviewed with family members at least quarterly show meaningfully better outcomes for people with dementia, including reduced behavioural distress and better nutritional status.","watch_out":"Ask whether you would be invited to contribute to and review your parent's care plan, and how often those reviews happen. Ask to see a sample (anonymised) to understand how detailed and personal the plans actually are."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for caring at its June 2021 inspection. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, and responsiveness to individual needs. The published report contains no direct observations of staff interactions, no resident testimony, and no family quotes. The Good rating indicates inspectors were satisfied, but the detail behind that judgement is not available in the published text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned by name in 57.3% of positive reviews across more than 5,400 UK care homes. Compassion and dignity account for another 55.2%. These are the things families notice immediately on a visit and remember long after. Because the inspection report does not give you specific observations here, you will need to gather this evidence yourself. Notice whether staff use your parent's preferred name from the start, whether interactions feel unhurried, and how staff respond when a resident appears distressed or confused.","evidence_base":"Good Practice research identifies non-verbal communication as equally important as spoken interaction for people with advanced dementia. Homes where staff slow their pace, make eye contact, and narrate their actions before touching a resident show measurably lower levels of distress behaviour.","watch_out":"When you visit, watch how staff in corridors and communal areas acknowledge residents who are not actively asking for help. Are they greeted by name? Does a member of staff sit with someone who looks unsettled? These small, unrequested acts of kindness are the most reliable signal of a genuinely caring culture."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for responsiveness at its June 2021 inspection. This domain covers activities, individual engagement, and end-of-life care. The published report does not describe the activity programme, one-to-one engagement provision, or how the home responds to individual preferences. No observations or resident testimony on these topics are included in the available text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness is the third most commonly mentioned theme in our family review data, cited in 27.1% of positive reviews. What families mean by happiness is not passive contentment but actual engagement: something to do, someone to talk to, a sense of being known. Good Practice research is clear that for people with dementia, group activities alone are not enough. Your parent will need individual, tailored engagement, particularly if dementia makes group settings difficult to follow. Activities rooted in familiar everyday tasks, such as folding, sorting, or simple cooking, can maintain a sense of purpose and identity. The inspection gives you no specific evidence on this, so ask directly.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research rapid evidence review found that Montessori-based and task-oriented individual engagement significantly reduces distress in people with moderate to advanced dementia, and that homes relying only on group entertainment programmes leave the most vulnerable residents disengaged for large parts of the day.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to show you the timetable for the past two weeks and to describe how a resident who cannot join group activities would be supported during a typical afternoon. If the answer is vague or defaults to television, that is worth probing further."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for leadership at its June 2021 inspection, improving from a previous Requires Improvement. A named registered manager, Miss Sarah Jacqueline Benson, is identified in the registration records. A nominated individual, Mr Edmund Carley, is also named. The published report does not describe how the manager is experienced by staff or residents, what governance systems are in place, or how the home responds to complaints and feedback.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Good Practice research identifies leadership stability as one of the strongest predictors of sustained quality in care homes. A manager who has been in post long enough to know every resident by name, and who staff feel comfortable approaching with concerns, creates the conditions for everything else to work. The improvement from Requires Improvement to Good in leadership is the most important single data point in this report, because it suggests the home recognised its problems and fixed them. However, you cannot know from the published findings how embedded that improvement is. Management (23.4% weight in our family review data) and communication with families (11.5%) are both themes where families notice quickly whether the culture is genuine or surface level.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review found that homes where the registered manager was visible on the floor rather than office-based showed higher staff morale, lower turnover, and better family satisfaction scores. Bottom-up empowerment, where care staff can raise concerns without fear, is a consistent marker of homes that maintain quality over time.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how long she has been in post at Polebank Hall and whether the same senior care staff are still in place from before the previous Requires Improvement rating. A stable team that worked through the improvement process together is a very different proposition from a new manager brought in to fix inherited problems."}

  Verified by inspector

Source: CQC inspection report →

What the evidence base says

Against the DCC Good Practice in Dementia Care standards, this home’s evidence aligns most strongly on The home provides specialist support for sensory impairments and dementia, alongside general care for people over 65. Healthcare professionals visiting the home find it easy to coordinate care here.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents living with dementia, the unhurried pace and attentive staff create a particularly supportive environment. The team understands how to provide specialist dementia care within their calm, settled atmosphere. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.