Park Lodge Care Home

What families say

Based on 7 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness70
• Activities & engagement65
• Food quality65
• Healthcare68
• Management & leadership68
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2022-10-11 · Report published 2022-10-11 · Inspected 7 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Park Lodge Care Home was rated Good for Safe at its September 2025 inspection. This domain covers staffing levels, medicines management, infection control, and how the home responds to accidents and incidents. The published summary does not include specific detail on staffing ratios, night cover, or agency use. No concerns were identified that prevented a Good rating being awarded.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for Safe is reassuring as a starting point, but our Good Practice evidence base (drawn from 61 studies) consistently identifies night staffing as the area where safety is most likely to slip, even in homes with positive daytime cultures. The published report does not tell you how many staff are on duty after 8pm at Park Lodge, or how heavily the home relies on agency cover. These are the two questions that matter most if your parent has dementia and may be unsettled overnight. A Good rating means inspectors were satisfied on the day they visited; it does not guarantee what happens at 2am on a Tuesday.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that agency staff reliance is one of the most consistent predictors of inconsistent care quality, because unfamiliar faces disorient people with dementia and disrupt the routines that support calm behaviour.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not the planned template. Count how many overnight shifts were covered by permanent staff versus agency workers, and ask what the minimum staffing level is on the dementia unit after 9pm."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Park Lodge Care Home was rated Good for Effective at its September 2025 inspection. This domain covers training, care planning, health monitoring, and food. The home supports people with dementia, mental health conditions, and physical disabilities, which requires a broad and specific staff skill set. The published summary does not include detail on training content, care plan review frequency, or food quality.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"In our analysis of 3,602 positive family reviews, food quality is mentioned by name in a meaningful share of responses (it carries a 20.9% weight in our family score). A Good rating for Effective suggests the basics are in place, but the inspection report does not describe what your parent would actually eat, whether they would have a choice, or whether dietary needs linked to dementia (such as difficulty swallowing or changes in appetite) are actively managed. Care plans are the other key issue here: our Good Practice evidence base shows that plans which are reviewed regularly and include family input produce markedly better outcomes for people with dementia than plans written at admission and rarely revisited.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett review found that care plans function as living documents only when staff are trained to update them in response to day-to-day changes, not just at scheduled review points. Homes that involved families in plan reviews consistently received higher satisfaction ratings.","watch_out":"Ask to see an anonymised example of a care plan and ask when it was last reviewed. Then ask whether families are invited to review meetings or whether updates are communicated to relatives after the fact."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Park Lodge Care Home was rated Good for Caring at its September 2025 inspection. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, privacy, and how well the home supports independence. No direct quotes from people living in the home or their relatives are included in the published summary. The rating indicates inspectors did not identify concerns in this area.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single most important driver of family satisfaction in our review data: 57.3% of positive reviews across 5,409 UK care homes mention warm or welcoming staff by name. Compassion and dignity follow at 55.2%. A Good rating for Caring is encouraging, but without specific observations or quotes from the inspection report, you cannot know from this document alone whether the warmth is consistent across shifts, or whether it is maintained during harder moments such as when your parent is confused, distressed, or refusing care. The only way to assess this reliably is to observe it yourself.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base highlights that non-verbal communication, tone, pace, and physical proximity, matters as much as spoken words for people with advanced dementia. Homes where staff slow down and make eye contact before any interaction consistently produce lower rates of distressed behaviour.","watch_out":"Sit in a communal area for at least 20 minutes during your visit. Watch whether staff make eye contact and use the resident's name before speaking or touching them, and whether anyone is left sitting without acknowledgement for long periods."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Park Lodge Care Home was rated Good for Responsive at its September 2025 inspection. This domain covers activities, individual engagement, and how well the home adapts care to each person's preferences and needs, including end-of-life care. The home supports a mixed client group including people with dementia and mental health conditions. The published summary does not include detail on the activities programme or how the home supports people who cannot participate in group activities.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness carries a 27.1% weight in our family score, and activities engagement carries 21.4%. A Good rating for Responsive is a positive signal, but for a parent with dementia, the question is not just whether there is an activities programme but whether there is something specifically for people who can no longer join a group session. Our Good Practice evidence base identifies one-to-one engagement, including familiar household tasks, sensory activities, and life-history work, as having strong evidence for reducing distress and improving wellbeing in people with moderate to advanced dementia. The published report does not tell you whether Park Lodge offers this.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett review found that Montessori-based and life-history approaches, where activities draw on a person's own skills and memories, show consistent positive effects on engagement and mood for people with dementia, even at advanced stages.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator (or whoever leads engagement at the home) to describe what happens for a resident with advanced dementia who cannot join a group. Ask for a specific example from the past week, not a general description of policy."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Park Lodge Care Home was rated Good for Well-led at its September 2025 inspection. The registered manager is Miss Elaine Josephine Williams, and the nominated individual is Mr Rajanikanth Selvanandan. The home is run by SS Care Centre Ltd. The published summary does not include detail on manager tenure, staff culture, or how the home handles complaints and incidents. The previous rating of Requires Improvement makes this recovery notable.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management and leadership carries a 23.4% weight in our family score, and communication with families carries 11.5%. The recovery from Requires Improvement to Good is genuinely positive: it suggests the leadership team identified what was wrong and addressed it. However, our Good Practice evidence base shows that leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of sustained quality. If the manager who led the recovery is new to the role or if there has been significant staff turnover, the improvement may not yet be embedded. Communication with families, particularly when things go wrong, is the area families most commonly raise in negative reviews. The inspection does not tell you how the home currently handles complaints or how quickly it responds to family concerns.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett review found that homes where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear consistently outperform those with top-down, compliance-focused cultures, and that manager tenure of more than two years is associated with lower staff turnover and higher resident wellbeing.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how long they have been in post, and ask what specifically changed between the Requires Improvement rating and the most recent inspection. A manager who can describe specific, concrete improvements is a more reliable signal than one who speaks in general terms about commitment to quality."}

  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 team supports residents with dementia, mental health conditions and physical disabilities. They care for both younger adults under 65 and older residents, offering specialised approaches for different age groups and conditions.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents living with dementia, the home provides specialist care tailored to individual needs. Staff work with families to understand each person's history and preferences. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.