The Dell Care Home

What families say

People visiting The Dell notice how residents chat together and seem genuinely comfortable in each other's company. The activities programme keeps days interesting, with creative sessions that residents actually want to join in with.

Based on 8 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth55
• Compassion & dignity55
• Cleanliness60
• Activities & engagement50
• Food quality50
• Healthcare55
• Management & leadership65
• Resident happiness55

What inspectors found

Inspected 2023-03-07 · Report published 2023-03-07 · Inspected 5 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for safety at the February 2023 inspection. This represents an improvement from the previous Requires Improvement rating. The published summary does not include specific observations about staffing levels, medicines management, falls prevention, or infection control practices. A July 2023 monitoring review found no evidence of new concerns.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"An improvement from Requires Improvement to Good in safety is meaningful. It tells you that whatever was falling short before has, in the inspector's view, been addressed. However, Good practice in dementia care research consistently highlights night staffing as the point where safety is most likely to slip, and the inspection findings here give no detail on overnight ratios. For a 40-bed home with a dementia specialism, this is one of the most important questions you can ask directly. Agency staff reliance is another key risk factor: consistent familiar faces matter greatly to people with dementia, and high agency use undermines that consistency.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base (IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University, 2026) identifies night staffing ratios and agency staff reliance as the two factors most commonly associated with safety failures in residential dementia care.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not a template. Count how many shifts were covered by permanent staff versus agency staff, and ask specifically how many staff are on duty overnight for the 40 beds."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for effectiveness at the February 2023 inspection. This covers training, care planning, healthcare access, and nutrition. The published summary does not include specific detail on any of these areas. There is no information in the published findings about GP access arrangements, dementia training content, or how care plans are written or reviewed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia care home comes down to whether staff actually know your parent as an individual and act on that knowledge. Our Good Practice evidence base found that care plans function as living documents only when they are reviewed regularly with input from families, and when staff have had meaningful dementia-specific training rather than a one-off online module. The inspection rating of Good is encouraging, but the lack of published detail means you cannot know from this report alone how well your parent's individual needs would be understood and met. Food quality is one of the most reliable observable signals of genuine care, and 20.9% of positive family reviews in our data mention it specifically. Ask to visit at a mealtime.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies personalised care planning, including life history and individual preference recording, as one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing for people with dementia living in residential care.","watch_out":"Ask to see a sample care plan (anonymised) and ask specifically how the home records a new resident's preferred name, daily routines, food likes and dislikes, and important life history. Then ask how often these plans are formally reviewed and whether families are invited to take part."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for caring at the February 2023 inspection. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, and how staff treat your parent as an individual. The published summary does not include specific observations of staff interactions, resident quotes about how they feel treated, or relative feedback about the care culture. No direct quotes from residents or relatives appear in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity together account for 55.2%. These are the things families notice first and remember longest. The inspection's Good rating in this domain is positive, but without specific observations or resident testimony in the published findings, you cannot take this on trust alone. On your visit, watch what happens in the corridors: do staff make eye contact and speak to your parent by name, or do they walk past? Do they move at your parent's pace or their own? These small moments tell you more than any rating.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base highlights that non-verbal communication, including touch, tone, and pace, is as important as verbal communication for people with advanced dementia, and that staff who have been trained in this approach produce measurably lower levels of distress in residents.","watch_out":"On your visit, watch how a staff member responds when a resident with dementia appears confused or unsettled. Do they crouch to eye level, speak slowly and calmly, and stay with the person? Or do they redirect quickly and move on? This is the single most revealing thing you can observe."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for responsiveness at the February 2023 inspection. This domain covers activities, individual engagement, and end-of-life care. The published summary does not include specific information about the activities programme, how the home supports people who cannot join group activities, or how end-of-life wishes are recorded and acted on.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities matter for wellbeing, and resident happiness is cited in 27.1% of positive family reviews in our data. For someone with dementia, the quality of daily engagement matters as much as the activity itself: a familiar household task or a one-to-one conversation can be more beneficial than a group session. The Good Practice evidence base highlights that Montessori-based approaches, including purposeful everyday tasks, produce better wellbeing outcomes than scheduled group entertainment. The inspection gives you no detail here, so this is an area where your visit and direct questions are essential. Ask specifically what the home does for your parent on a day when they cannot or do not want to join a group.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies individually tailored activities, particularly those involving familiar everyday tasks, as significantly more effective for wellbeing in people with mid-to-advanced dementia than group-only programmes.","watch_out":"Ask to see the activity record for the past two weeks, not the planned schedule. Check whether individual one-to-one sessions are recorded alongside group activities, and ask what happens on a day when your parent does not want to join a group."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for well-led at the February 2023 inspection. A registered manager is named in the report, as is a nominated individual for the provider, Wellbeing Care Limited. The improvement from Requires Improvement to Good across all domains suggests meaningful progress under the current leadership. The published summary does not include specific detail about how the manager is known to staff and residents, or how the home handles complaints and learning from incidents.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of care quality trajectory, according to our Good Practice evidence base. A home that has improved from Requires Improvement to Good has done something right, and understanding who led that improvement and how long they have been in post matters. Our family review data shows that communication with families (cited in 11.5% of positive reviews) is closely linked to families' confidence in management. The named registered manager is a positive sign, but tenure and day-to-day visibility are what count. Ask how long the current manager has been in post and whether they are usually present during the day.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies leadership stability and a culture where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear as the two factors most predictive of sustained quality improvement in residential dementia care.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly how long they have been in post, what the main changes were that led to the improvement in rating, and how they find out when something has gone wrong. A good manager will give you a specific and honest answer. If the answer is vague, that tells you something too."}

  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 Dell provides specialist dementia care alongside their general services for people over 65.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents living with dementia, the care team understands how to support both practical needs and emotional wellbeing. The home creates an environment where people with dementia can maintain social connections and participate in meaningful activities. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.