St Winifreds Care Home

What families say

Families often comment on the friendly atmosphere when they visit. Staff are described as warm and approachable, making an effort to chat with both residents and their visitors. The home runs regular activities and encourages families to get involved through dedicated family days.

Based on 11 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness68
• Activities & engagement42
• Food quality55
• Healthcare68
• Management & leadership72
• Resident happiness65

What inspectors found

Inspected 2021-01-14 · Report published 2021-01-14 · Inspected 3 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"St Winifreds Care Centre was rated Good for safety at its December 2020 inspection. This 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 staff use. No safety concerns or enforcement actions are recorded in the published findings. The home had improved from a previous Requires Improvement rating, which suggests the risks identified earlier had been addressed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating means inspectors were satisfied that your parent would not be placed at unacceptable risk, but the published summary gives you very little detail to work with. The Good Practice evidence base flags night staffing as the area where safety most often slips, particularly in homes supporting people with dementia. Our family review data shows that staff attentiveness (cited in 14% of positive reviews) is closely linked to how safe families feel their parent actually is day to day. Because the published text does not confirm staffing numbers or agency use, these are questions you need to put directly to the manager before visiting.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that night staffing ratios and reliance on agency staff are two of the most consistent predictors of safety failure in care homes. A Good rating at a single point in time does not confirm what happens on a Tuesday night in January.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you last week's actual staffing rota, not the template, and count how many permanent staff versus agency staff covered the night shifts across the 59 beds."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Effective at its December 2020 inspection. This domain covers how well staff know and plan for each resident's individual needs, including dementia care, healthcare access, nutrition, and training. St Winifreds lists dementia as a specialism, which means inspectors would have scrutinised whether staff have the knowledge to support people living with dementia. The published summary does not include specific examples of care plan content, GP visit frequency, or the detail of dementia training provided. No concerns in this domain are recorded.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for Effective is a reasonable baseline, but for a home that lists dementia as a specialism, you need more than a rating. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that care plans need to function as living documents, updated when your parent's needs change, not just reviewed annually. Food quality is also assessed under this domain, and 20.9% of positive family reviews specifically mention food as a marker of how much the home genuinely cares. The inspection did not record specific observations on mealtimes, so visit at lunchtime if you can.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that dementia training quality varies significantly between homes even where a specialism is declared. Training that focuses on communication, behaviour as expression of need, and non-pharmacological responses produces measurably better outcomes than compliance-only training.","watch_out":"Ask the manager what dementia training staff have completed in the past 12 months, who delivered it, and whether it covered non-verbal communication and responding to distressed behaviour, not just medication and moving and handling."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"St Winifreds received a Good rating for Caring at its December 2020 inspection. This domain covers how staff treat the people who live there, including dignity, respect, privacy, and whether care feels genuinely person-centred rather than task-focused. The published summary does not include specific inspector observations of staff interactions, named quotes from residents or relatives, or examples of how the home supports independence. No concerns in this domain are recorded, and the improvement from Requires Improvement overall suggests the previous inspection's issues have been resolved.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of positive family reviews in our data, cited in 57.3% of positive Google reviews across UK care homes. Compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. A Good rating for Caring is encouraging, but because the published summary contains no direct observations or quotes, you cannot rely on the rating alone. Watch how staff interact with residents in corridors, not just during formal care tasks, and notice whether they use your parent's preferred name, make eye contact, and stop rather than walk past.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base confirms that non-verbal communication matters as much as verbal interaction for people living with dementia. Staff who crouch to eye level, use touch appropriately, and respond to facial expression as well as words produce significantly lower rates of distress and agitation.","watch_out":"On your visit, stand in a corridor or communal area for ten minutes without announcing why you are there. Count how many times staff initiate contact with a resident who is not asking for help, and how many times they walk past without acknowledgement."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Requires Improvement at the December 2020 inspection. This is the domain that covers how well the home tailors care and daily life to the individual needs of the people who live there, including activities, engagement, and how complaints are handled. This rating means inspectors found specific shortfalls in this area that had not yet been resolved. The published summary does not detail what those shortfalls were, which is a significant gap for families. No detail on activity provision, individual engagement, or complaint handling is included in the published text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"This is the rating that should give you the most pause. Requires Improvement in the Responsive domain means inspectors were not satisfied that the people living at St Winifreds were getting a life here, not just a safe place to sleep. Our family review data shows that activities and engagement appear in 21.4% of positive reviews, and resident happiness in 27.1%. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that group activities alone are not sufficient for people with advanced dementia, who need one-to-one engagement and opportunities to do meaningful everyday tasks. Because this inspection took place in December 2020 (during the pandemic), some restrictions on activities may have contributed to this rating, but the shortfall still needs explaining.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that Montessori-based and everyday-task approaches to dementia engagement produce better outcomes than scheduled group activities. Homes that rely on a single activities coordinator running group sessions frequently fail people with moderate to advanced dementia who cannot access or benefit from group settings.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the activity records for the past four weeks, not the planned schedule. Ask specifically: how many hours of one-to-one engagement does each resident on the dementia unit receive each week, and who delivers it when the activities coordinator is off?"}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"St Winifreds was rated Good for Well-led at its December 2020 inspection. The home is operated by Nellsar Limited, with Mrs Tracy Ann Wright as registered manager and Mr Martin Barrett as nominated individual. A named leadership structure being in place is a basic but important indicator. The Good rating for Well-led suggests inspectors found the governance, accountability, and culture of the home to be satisfactory. The published summary does not include specific observations on management visibility, staff culture, or how the home learns from incidents. The overall improvement from Requires Improvement is itself a meaningful signal that leadership is functioning.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of care quality over time, according to the Good Practice evidence base. A Good rating for Well-led, combined with an overall improvement in the home's rating, suggests the management team has been effective at driving change. Our family review data shows communication with families appears in 11.5% of positive reviews, and families specifically value feeling informed rather than managed. Because the published summary is thin, you cannot confirm from this report alone whether the manager is a visible daily presence or primarily office-based.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research rapid evidence review found that homes where managers are known by name to residents and regularly present on the floor have better outcomes across all domains. Bottom-up cultures, where care staff feel safe to raise concerns, are associated with sustained improvement rather than inspection-driven compliance.","watch_out":"When you visit, ask a care assistant (not the manager) one question: if you noticed something was wrong with a resident's care, what would you do? The answer will tell you more about the home's culture than any document."}

  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 cares for adults of all ages, including younger people under 65 with physical disabilities. They also provide specialist dementia support.. Gaps or open questions remain on For those living with dementia, the home offers dedicated support as part of their specialist services. The team works with residents at different stages of their dementia journey. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.