Ferndene Care Home

What families say

Based on 14 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth70
• Compassion & dignity70
• Cleanliness70
• Activities & engagement60
• Food quality60
• Healthcare68
• Management & leadership75
• Resident happiness68

What inspectors found

Inspected 2023-02-01 · Report published 2023-02-01 · Inspected 4 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the January 2023 inspection. This domain covers staffing levels, medicines management, infection control, and how the home responds to and learns from incidents. The home's improvement from a previous Requires Improvement rating suggests that earlier safety concerns have been resolved. No specific inspector observations, staffing numbers, or medication audit details are included in the published inspection summary.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating is the baseline you need before considering any other factor. However, our Good Practice evidence base highlights that night staffing is where safety most commonly slips in care homes, and the published findings give no detail about overnight staffing ratios for the 49 beds here. Agency staff reliance is another key concern: consistent, familiar faces matter significantly for people living with dementia, who can become distressed by strangers. The shift from Requires Improvement to Good suggests the management has taken safety seriously, but you should verify the specifics directly rather than relying on the rating alone.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review (2026) found that agency staff reliance is one of the strongest predictors of inconsistent care quality, particularly for people with dementia who depend on familiar routines and faces.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not the planned template. Count how many shifts were covered by permanent staff versus agency workers, and ask specifically how many carers are on duty overnight."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good. This domain covers training, care planning, healthcare access, and nutrition. Dementia is listed as a specialism for the home, which means inspectors will have assessed whether staff training and care planning reflect the needs of people living with dementia. No specific examples of care plan content, training records, GP access arrangements, or food quality are included in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia care setting depends heavily on whether care plans are treated as living documents that are updated as your parent's needs change, not forms completed at admission and rarely revisited. Our Good Practice evidence base emphasises that regular GP access and proactive health monitoring are particularly important for people with dementia, who may not be able to communicate pain or physical change clearly. The Good rating here is positive, but the absence of specific detail means you should ask directly how often care plans are reviewed and whether you would be included in those reviews.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that care plans functioning as genuine living documents, reviewed with family input, are a consistent marker of high-quality dementia care across the 61 studies examined.","watch_out":"Ask to see a blank copy of the care plan template and ask how often plans are formally reviewed. Then ask whether the review meeting includes family members and how you would be notified if your parent's needs changed between scheduled reviews."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, and how well staff support residents' independence. A Good rating in this domain is the most directly relevant finding for families choosing a dementia care home. However, no inspector observations of staff interactions, no quotes from residents or relatives, and no specific examples of dignity in practice are recorded in the published inspection summary.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of positive family experience in our review data: 57.3% of positive reviews across 5,409 UK care homes specifically mention warm, friendly staff, and compassion and dignity account for a further 55.2%. A Good rating here is reassuring, but a rating is not a substitute for what you will see with your own eyes on a visit. Watch whether staff address your parent by their preferred name, whether they knock before entering rooms, and whether interactions feel unhurried. These small, observable details are the most reliable signal of genuine person-centred culture.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base confirms that non-verbal communication, including unhurried pace, eye contact at the person's level, and use of preferred names, matters as much as verbal interaction for people with dementia, particularly those who have limited spoken language.","watch_out":"During your visit, watch a corridor or lounge interaction that you did not prompt. Does the staff member stop, make eye contact, and use the resident's name? Or does the interaction happen while the staff member is already moving to the next task? The pace of that moment tells you more than any rating."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good. This domain covers activities and engagement, how well the home responds to individual preferences and complaints, and end-of-life planning. Responsiveness is particularly important for people with dementia, whose ability to communicate preferences may change over time. No specific activities are described, no individual engagement examples are recorded, and no detail about end-of-life planning or complaints handling is included in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness is the third strongest theme in our family review data, cited in 27.1% of positive reviews, and it is closely linked to whether people have something purposeful to do each day. Our Good Practice evidence base is clear that group activities alone are not sufficient for people with advanced dementia: one-to-one engagement and familiar, everyday household tasks (folding, gardening, simple cooking) support wellbeing more effectively than passive group sessions. The Good rating here is encouraging, but ask specifically what happens for your parent on a day when they cannot join a group, or when they simply do not want to.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that Montessori-based and everyday-task approaches to activity, rather than scheduled group sessions, produce the strongest wellbeing outcomes for people with moderate to advanced dementia.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what a typical Tuesday looks like for a resident who prefers not to join groups. If the answer focuses entirely on the group timetable and does not describe any individual one-to-one engagement, treat that as a gap to probe further."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Good. Named leadership is confirmed: Mrs Melanie Jayne Killelay is the registered manager and Ms Tracy Jane Davison is the nominated individual. The home is operated by Monarch Healthcare (Ferndene) Ltd. The improvement from a previous Requires Improvement rating across all domains is itself evidence of effective leadership: problems were identified and resolved. No detail about manager tenure, staff culture, governance systems, or how the home uses feedback from residents and families is included in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Our Good Practice evidence base identifies leadership stability as one of the strongest predictors of sustained care quality: homes where the manager has been in post for two or more years and is known by name to staff and residents tend to maintain their ratings between inspections. The confirmed presence of a registered manager is a positive structural signal, but the improvement from Requires Improvement also prompts a practical question: how long has the current manager been in post, and were they in place during the period when the home was rated Requires Improvement? If yes, that is a strong indicator of genuine improvement. If they arrived recently, the culture change is less proven. Management visibility and communication with families accounts for 11.5% of positive family reviews in our data.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett evidence review found that bottom-up staff empowerment, where care workers can raise concerns without fear, is a leading indicator of good governance and correlates with sustained quality improvement over time.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly: how long have you been in post here, and what was the single most important change you made after the previous Requires Improvement rating? A specific, confident answer that names a concrete action is a good sign. A vague or deflecting answer warrants further scrutiny."}

  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 at Ferndene provides care for adults under 65, including those with complex needs, alongside their services for older residents. They also offer specialist dementia support.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents living with dementia, the care assistants bring particular patience and understanding to their work. The home's approach focuses on maintaining dignity while providing the specialist support each person needs. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.