St Josephs Convent Nursing Home

What families say

Families talk about feeling properly welcomed here, not just during visiting hours but whenever they need reassurance. There's a sense that staff make time for the conversations that matter — those moments when you just need someone to listen and understand what you're going through.

Based on 16 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth52
• Compassion & dignity55
• Cleanliness55
• Activities & engagement35
• Food quality50
• Healthcare55
• Management & leadership60
• Resident happiness52

What inspectors found

Inspected 2019-04-04 · Report published 2019-04-04 · Inspected 2 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the January 2019 inspection. Beyond the rating itself, the published inspection text does not include specific detail about staffing ratios, medicines management, infection control practices, or falls recording. A monitoring review carried out in July 2023 found no evidence requiring a change to the rating.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for safety is a meaningful baseline, particularly given the home previously held a Requires Improvement rating across the board. However, the published findings give you very little to go on beyond the headline. Good Practice research consistently identifies night staffing as the point where safety most often slips in care homes, and agency reliance as a key risk factor for consistency of care. Neither is addressed in the available report for this home. You will need to ask directly about both. For a 49-bed nursing home that includes people with dementia and physical disabilities, knowing the overnight staffing ratio is not optional information.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that safety incidents in care homes are disproportionately concentrated in night hours and in periods of high agency staff use, because agency workers are less familiar with individual residents' needs and warning signs.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you last week's actual staffing rota for night shifts, not the template. Count how many permanent staff were on duty overnight compared with agency or bank staff, and ask what the minimum night staffing level is for the dementia unit specifically."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good at the January 2019 inspection. The published text does not include specific detail about dementia training, care plan quality, GP access arrangements, or food provision. The home lists dementia as a formal specialism, which implies a higher expectation of staff knowledge and environmental design, but the inspection findings available do not confirm or describe what that specialism looks like in practice.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for effectiveness tells you that inspectors were broadly satisfied with how the home assesses and responds to people's needs. However, for a home that lists dementia as a specialism, the lack of published detail makes it hard to judge whether the specialism is substantive or nominal. Good Practice evidence is clear that dementia training content matters as much as whether training happened at all, and that care plans need to be treated as living documents that are regularly updated with family input. Food quality is also a reliable indicator of how genuinely the home pays attention to individual needs. None of these are described in the available report. The Effective domain rating here is encouraging but not enough on its own to answer the questions you need answered.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that care homes with a formal dementia specialism only delivered meaningfully better outcomes when staff training covered non-verbal communication, behaviour as communication, and person-centred life history approaches, not just generic dementia awareness.","watch_out":"Ask to see a sample care plan (anonymised is fine) and ask when it was last updated and whether family members contributed to it. Then ask what dementia training staff complete, who delivers it, and how recently your parent's likely key worker completed it."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good at the January 2019 inspection. The published inspection text does not include direct observations of staff interactions, quotes from residents or relatives about how they feel treated, or specific examples of dignity or privacy being upheld. The rating reflects inspectors' overall assessment but the evidence behind it is not visible in the available report.","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 feature in 55.2%. A Good rating for Caring is therefore the most important headline this report contains. The difficulty here is that the published findings give you no specific evidence to hold onto: no quotes from your parent's peers, no descriptions of how staff move through the building, no examples of how preferences are respected. Good Practice research is clear that the most reliable signal of genuine caring culture is observed, not reported. This is a home where a visit matters more than the paperwork.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research evidence review found that non-verbal communication quality, how staff make eye contact, use touch, and adjust their pace to the individual, is as predictive of resident wellbeing as any formal care plan measure, particularly for people living with advanced dementia.","watch_out":"Arrive unannounced if the home will allow it, or at least at an unplanned time such as mid-morning rather than at a scheduled tour slot. Watch whether staff greet your parent's peers by name in corridors, whether interactions feel unhurried, and whether residents appear calm and acknowledged rather than waiting."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Requires Improvement at the January 2019 inspection. This is the only domain that did not reach Good, and it covers whether your parent will have a meaningful and individualised life at the home: activities, engagement, responsiveness to personal preferences, and end-of-life planning. The published report text does not describe specifically what was found to be inadequate, which makes it harder to assess whether the problem has since been addressed. This rating has not been re-inspected since 2019.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities and engagement feature in 21.4% of positive family reviews, and resident happiness in 27.1%, so this domain covers what families consistently tell us matters to them. A Requires Improvement rating here, sustained across more than five years without a follow-up inspection, is the single most important concern on this report. Good Practice research is consistent that group activities alone are not sufficient for people with dementia, particularly those with more advanced needs, and that one-to-one engagement and meaningful occupation throughout the day are what make a real difference to wellbeing. You cannot currently know whether the home has addressed the original concerns. You need to ask directly and observe.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found strong evidence that individualised activities, including household tasks, life-history-based occupation, and one-to-one time, produce significantly better outcomes for people with dementia than group-only activity programmes, particularly in reducing distress and supporting identity.","watch_out":"Ask the manager what specifically was found to be inadequate at the 2019 inspection and what has changed since. Then ask to see the current activity schedule and ask what happens for a resident who cannot join a group activity on a given day. Ask who is responsible for one-to-one engagement and how many hours per week that typically amounts to."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Good at the January 2019 inspection. The home is run by St Joseph Care Ltd and has two registered managers named in the inspection record alongside a nominated individual. The management structure is therefore formally defined. The July 2023 monitoring review found no evidence that required a change to the overall rating. Beyond the rating and the named roles, the published text does not describe management visibility, staff culture, or governance processes.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management and leadership feature in 23.4% of positive family reviews, and Good Practice research identifies leadership stability as one of the strongest predictors of sustained care quality. Having two named registered managers is unusual and worth understanding: ask whether both are active, what each one's area of responsibility is, and how long they have each been in post. Tenure matters because frequent management changes are associated with declining quality. The Well-led rating here is positive, but given the gap since the last inspection, you should treat it as a starting point for your own questions rather than a confirmed current position.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research evidence review found that homes with stable, visible leadership and cultures where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear consistently achieve better outcomes for residents, including lower rates of avoidable harm and higher rates of family satisfaction.","watch_out":"Ask each registered manager how long they have been in their current role and ask what has changed in the home since the Requires Improvement rating in 2019. A manager who can give you a specific, honest account of what went wrong and what was done about it is a more reassuring sign than one who gives a general answer."}

  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 St Joseph's provides nursing care for adults over 65, younger adults with care needs, and people living with dementia or physical disabilities. The home's experience across these different areas means they're used to supporting people with varying needs.. Gaps or open questions remain on For people living with dementia, the home provides specialised nursing support. Staff here understand the unique challenges dementia brings, both for the person experiencing it and their family. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.