Sherwood Grange a Care UK home

What families say

Visitors often comment on how approachable the staff are, from the person greeting you at reception to the care team on the floors. There's a sense that residents are encouraged to get involved in the regular entertainment and activities that fill the calendar here.

Based on 15 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness72
• Activities & engagement68
• Food quality68
• Healthcare70
• Management & leadership70
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2023-12-08 · Report published 2023-12-08 · Inspected 4 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The inspection rated Sherwood Grange as Good for safety. This domain covers staffing levels, medicines management, infection control, and how the home responds to accidents and incidents. The home supports residents with dementia, physical disabilities, and sensory impairment, all of which carry specific safety considerations. No specific findings, observations, or data from this domain are included in the published inspection summary. The previous rating for this domain is not separately confirmed in the available data.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating is reassuring, but the published findings give you little to go on beyond the rating itself. Our Good Practice evidence review highlights that safety often slips at night, when staffing ratios are lower and agency cover is more common. For a 59-bed nursing home with a dementia specialism, the night staffing question is particularly important. Families in our review data consistently name staff attentiveness as one of the things that matters most to them, and attentiveness after 8pm depends entirely on how many permanent staff are present. Do not rely on the rating alone here.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that agency staff reliance and low night staffing ratios are among the most consistent predictors of safety incidents in care homes, particularly for residents living with dementia who may not be able to call for help.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not the template. Count the number of permanent staff names versus agency names on night shifts, and ask what the minimum staffing level is for 59 residents overnight."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The inspection rated Sherwood Grange as Good for effectiveness. This domain covers staff training, care planning, healthcare access, and nutrition. The home lists dementia as a specialism, which means the inspection would have considered whether staff training and care planning reflect dementia-specific needs. No individual examples, care plan observations, or healthcare data are included in the published summary. The home is registered to provide nursing care as well as personal care, which indicates clinical staff are present.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia nursing home depends on whether care plans are genuinely individual, regularly reviewed, and actually used by the staff who know your parent day to day. A Good rating tells you the inspector was satisfied, but it does not tell you how often plans are reviewed or whether your family would be included in those reviews. Food quality, which 20.9% of positive family reviews in our data specifically mention, is part of this domain. Visiting at a mealtime and asking to see a sample care plan for a current resident (anonymised) will give you a much clearer picture than the rating alone.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that care plans function as living documents only when they are updated regularly and when frontline staff, not just coordinators, are familiar with them. Homes where staff could describe individual preferences from memory tended to score higher on resident wellbeing outcomes.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how often care plans are formally reviewed, who attends those reviews, and whether families are routinely invited. Then ask a carer on the floor to describe, without looking at notes, what one of the residents they support most enjoys doing in the morning."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The inspection rated Sherwood Grange as Good for caring. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, and how well residents' independence is supported. Staff warmth is the single highest-weighted theme in our family review data, cited in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity together account for 55.2%. No specific inspector observations, quotes from residents, or examples of staff interactions are included in the published summary for this domain. The home's previous Outstanding rating suggests caring practice was once evidenced to a very high standard.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the thing families notice first and remember longest. In our data, it is mentioned more often than any other factor, including food, cleanliness, and activities. The Good rating here means an inspector was satisfied, but without specific observations or resident testimony in the published findings, you cannot know whether the warmth is consistent across all shifts or concentrated among a few individuals. On your visit, notice whether staff use your parent's preferred name without being prompted, whether they make eye contact and speak at a calm pace, and whether interactions feel unhurried even when the floor is busy.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review highlights that non-verbal communication matters as much as verbal for people living with dementia. Staff who crouch to eye level, use gentle touch, and pause before speaking produce measurably lower rates of agitation and distress, effects that persist even when verbal communication has largely been lost.","watch_out":"When you visit, ask a member of staff what your parent's preferred name is and how they like to be addressed. If they need to check a file before answering, that tells you something important about how person-centred the day-to-day culture really is."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The inspection rated Sherwood Grange as Good for responsiveness. This domain covers activities, individual engagement, and how well the home adapts to residents' changing needs, including end-of-life care. The home supports residents with dementia and sensory impairment, both of which require tailored rather than generic activity provision. No specific activity examples, individual engagement observations, or end-of-life care details are included in the published summary. Activities and engagement is weighted at 21.4% in our family review data and resident happiness at 27.1%.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good Responsive rating means the inspector was satisfied that activities and individual care are in place, but it does not confirm what those activities look like in practice. For families whose parent has advanced dementia or sensory impairment, the critical question is not what group activities are on the timetable, but what happens for someone who cannot participate in a group. Our Good Practice evidence review found that one-to-one activities, including simple household tasks, music, and reminiscence, have stronger wellbeing effects for people with advanced dementia than group programmes. Ask specifically about this.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that Montessori-based approaches and everyday household tasks such as folding, sorting, and simple cooking activities produce sustained engagement and reduced agitation in people with moderate to advanced dementia, particularly when activities are matched to the person's occupational history.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what they did last week with a resident who cannot join group sessions because of advanced dementia or severe sensory impairment. If the answer is vague or defaults to group activities, ask specifically how many planned one-to-one sessions took place and how they are recorded."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The inspection rated Sherwood Grange as Good for well-led. This domain covers management culture, governance, staff empowerment, and the home's ability to learn from incidents and improve. A named registered manager, Mrs Malgorzata Wcislo, is confirmed as in post. The home is run by Care UK Community Partnerships Ltd, a large national provider with its own governance structures. The home previously held an Outstanding rating overall, and the move to Good is a notable change in trajectory. No specific governance examples, audit findings, or staff culture observations are included in the published summary.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of consistent care quality over time. Our Good Practice evidence review found that homes where the registered manager is visible on the floor and known personally by residents and staff tend to sustain better outcomes across all domains. The decline from Outstanding to Good at Sherwood Grange is not in itself alarming, but it warrants a direct conversation with the manager about what changed and what has been done in response. Communication with families accounts for 11.5% of positive themes in our review data, so also ask how you would be kept informed if your parent's health or wellbeing changed.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that leadership stability, specifically a manager who has been in post for more than two years and is regularly present on care floors, is among the most reliable predictors of sustained quality in care homes, independent of provider size or ownership model.","watch_out":"Ask the registered manager directly how long she has been in her current role, what she believes led to the change from Outstanding to Good, and what specific improvements have been made since the March 2024 inspection. A confident, detailed answer is a positive sign. A vague or defensive one is worth noting."}

  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 Sherwood Grange provides care for adults both under and over 65, including those living with dementia, physical disabilities and sensory impairments.. Gaps or open questions remain on The home welcomes residents living with dementia, with staff trained to support their specific needs as part of the wider community. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.