Balmoral Care Home

What families say

Some visitors find a genuinely warm atmosphere here, with staff who know residents well and understand their individual needs. Families have particularly valued the compassionate approach during difficult times, including thoughtful end-of-life support.

Based on 13 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness70
• Activities & engagement68
• Food quality68
• Healthcare72
• Management & leadership72
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2020-01-10 · Report published 2020-01-10 · Inspected 3 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the July 2024 inspection. This domain covers staffing levels, medicines management, infection control, and how the home responds to safeguarding concerns. No specific inspector observations, staffing ratios, or detailed findings are included in the published report text. The home is registered for 85 beds, which makes night staffing an important practical question. A Good rating indicates that inspectors did not identify significant concerns in this area.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for safety is reassuring, but the published report does not tell you how many staff are on duty at 2am across 85 beds, or how often agency staff fill gaps. Our Good Practice evidence base highlights that night staffing is where safety most often slips in nursing homes, and that reliance on agency staff can undermine consistency of care for people living with dementia who depend on familiar faces and routines. The cleanliness theme accounts for 24.3% of positive family reviews in our data, and a Good safety rating would normally cover infection control, but no specific observations are recorded here. You will need to check these details directly with the home and on a visit.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review (61 studies, March 2026) found that night staffing ratios and agency staff reliance are among the strongest predictors of safety incidents in care homes for people living with dementia.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not the template. Count how many permanent staff versus agency staff covered night shifts, and ask what the minimum number of carers on duty overnight across all 85 beds is."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good at the July 2024 inspection. This domain covers staff training, care planning, healthcare access including GP involvement, and food and nutrition. Dementia is listed as a specialism for the home, which means inspectors would expect to see evidence of dementia-specific training and care planning. No specific findings, training records, or food-related observations are included in the published report text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for effectiveness suggests inspectors were satisfied that staff have the knowledge and processes to support your parent's health and wellbeing. Our family review data shows that food quality features in 20.9% of positive reviews, and healthcare access in 20.2%, making both of these important to families choosing a home. The Good Practice evidence base emphasises that care plans should function as living documents, updated regularly and shaped by family input, not filed away after admission. Without specific detail in this report, you cannot confirm whether that is happening here.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that dementia-specific training content, including non-verbal communication and understanding behaviour as communication, significantly improves the quality of day-to-day care for people living with dementia.","watch_out":"Ask the manager what dementia training all care staff complete, including night staff, and when it was last updated. Then ask to see a sample care plan (anonymised is fine) to check whether it records your parent's personal history, preferences, and communication style, or whether it reads as a generic document."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good at the July 2024 inspection. This domain covers how staff treat residents, including dignity, respect, privacy, and emotional warmth. For a home specialising in dementia care, this domain is particularly significant because residents may not be able to easily report poor treatment themselves. No direct inspector observations, resident quotes, or family testimonies are included in the published report text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of positive family reviews in our data, mentioned in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity account for 55.2%. A Good Caring rating means inspectors were satisfied in this area, but without specific observations recorded in the published report, you cannot confirm the texture of daily interactions from the paperwork alone. The Good Practice evidence base makes clear that for people living with advanced dementia, non-verbal signals matter as much as words: tone of voice, pace of movement, and whether staff crouch to eye level during personal care are all meaningful indicators. These are things you can only assess by visiting.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that person-led care, where staff know and consistently use an individual's life history, preferences, and communication style, is associated with reduced distress and better wellbeing for people living with dementia.","watch_out":"When you visit, watch what happens in corridors and communal areas when a resident appears unsettled or calls out. Do staff pause and respond, or do they continue past? Also check whether staff use your parent's preferred name from the outset, without you having to prompt them."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good at the July 2024 inspection. This domain covers whether care is tailored to individual needs, whether activities are meaningful and varied, how complaints are handled, and whether end-of-life care is planned. The home specialises in dementia care for older adults. No specific activity examples, individual care examples, or complaint handling detail appear in the published report text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities and engagement feature in 21.4% of positive family reviews in our data, and resident happiness in 27.1%. A Good Responsive rating is positive, but for a home of 85 beds with a dementia specialism, the practical question is how residents who cannot join group activities are kept engaged. The Good Practice evidence base consistently finds that one-to-one engagement, including Montessori-based approaches and familiar everyday tasks such as folding, sorting, or gardening, produces better outcomes for people with moderate or advanced dementia than group programmes alone. This is something the published report does not address.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that individually tailored activities, including household tasks and sensory engagement, are significantly more effective than group programmes for people with moderate to advanced dementia, and that homes with strong responsive ratings are more likely to sustain resident wellbeing over time.","watch_out":"Ask to see last week's actual activity record, not the planned schedule. Then ask specifically what would happen for your parent on a day when they could not participate in a group session: who would spend time with them, doing what, and for how long."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Good at the July 2024 inspection. This domain covers management culture, governance, staff support, and whether the home learns from incidents and complaints. A named registered manager and nominated individual are recorded in the published report. The home previously held a Requires Improvement rating, and the recovery to Good across all domains suggests a period of improvement under the current leadership. No specific observations about management culture, staff voice, or governance processes appear in the published text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management and leadership account for 23.4% of positive family reviews in our data, and communication with families for 11.5%. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of sustained quality in a care home: when managers change frequently, quality tends to deteriorate. The move from Requires Improvement back to Good is a meaningful signal, but you should ask how long the current manager has been in post and what specifically changed. Communication with families is a related concern our review data highlights, and this is not covered in the published findings.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that leadership stability and a culture where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear are among the strongest predictors of sustained quality improvement in care homes.","watch_out":"Ask the registered manager how long they have been in post and what the main changes were that led to the improvement from Requires Improvement to Good. Then ask how the home communicates with families when something goes wrong, and whether there is a regular written or verbal update for families of residents living with dementia."}

  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 both general residential care and specialist dementia support for people over 65.. Gaps or open questions remain on Families considering the dementia unit should know that some have raised concerns about staffing levels and training in this area. It's worth asking detailed questions about their current approach to dementia care and staff expertise. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.