Badgers Holt Residential Care Home

What families say

Families describe a place where residents appear happy and settled in their surroundings. The staff team shows real understanding in how they support people, treating everyone with respect and maintaining their dignity. Regular activities and organised days out help create variety and keep life interesting for those who live here.

Based on 6 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness72
• Activities & engagement55
• Food quality55
• Healthcare65
• Management & leadership45
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2019-05-14 · Report published 2019-05-14 · Inspected 3 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the August 2025 inspection. This indicates that inspectors were satisfied with the approach to safety, including staffing levels and medicines management, at the time of the visit. The published summary does not include specific observations about night staffing ratios, falls management, or infection control practices. For a 25-bed dementia-specialist home, these details matter and are worth asking about directly. There is no indication of any serious safety concern in the available findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating is a baseline you would expect, but it does not tell you everything you need to know. Good Practice research consistently finds that night staffing is where safety most often slips in smaller residential homes: a 25-bed home like Badgers Holt may have as few as two staff on after 10pm, and if your parent is prone to night-time distress or falls, that matters enormously. The inspection findings do not specify night staffing levels, so this is a gap you will need to fill yourself on a visit. Agency staff usage is another factor worth probing, because high agency reliance is associated with inconsistent care for people with dementia who depend on familiar faces.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review (IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University, March 2026) found that night staffing adequacy is one of the strongest predictors of safety incidents in residential dementia care, yet it is among the least consistently reported in inspection findings.","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 were on each night shift and how many of those shifts were covered by agency workers."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good at the August 2025 inspection. This covers care planning, training, healthcare access, and nutrition. The published summary does not include specific detail on how care plans are constructed, how frequently they are reviewed, or what dementia training staff have completed. A Good rating here suggests that the basic infrastructure of effective care was in place, but the absence of specific evidence means it is not possible to judge how personalised or responsive that care actually is in practice.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good effectiveness rating covers a lot of ground, from whether your parent sees a GP promptly when they need one to whether the care plan actually reflects who they are as a person. Our review data shows that food quality features in 20.9% of positive family reviews, often as a proxy for whether a home genuinely cares about the person rather than just meeting minimum standards. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that care plans should be treated as living documents reviewed with family input, not paperwork filed on admission and rarely revisited. Because the inspection findings do not describe the review process or training content in detail, these are areas where you need to ask specific questions.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University review found that dementia-specific training, particularly on non-verbal communication and behavioural responses to unmet need, significantly improves outcomes for people living with dementia in residential settings.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to walk you through a care plan (anonymised if needed) and explain how often it is reviewed, who contributes to that review, and how it has changed in response to a recent change in the resident's needs."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good at the August 2025 inspection. This domain covers how staff treat the people who live at Badgers Holt: whether they are kind, unhurried, and respectful of privacy and dignity. The published summary does not include specific inspector observations, resident comments, or relative feedback that would allow a detailed picture to be drawn. A Good rating is a positive indicator, but without specific evidence it is not possible to say whether this reflects consistently warm interactions or a more variable experience.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of satisfaction in our family review data, mentioned by name in 57.3% of positive reviews. Compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. What families are looking for when they visit is concrete and observable: do staff knock before entering a room, do they use your parent's preferred name, do they speak to them directly rather than over their head, and do they move without appearing rushed? The Good Practice evidence base confirms that for people living with dementia, non-verbal communication matters as much as words, and a rushed or distracted manner can cause significant distress even when the physical care is technically adequate. Because the inspection does not provide specific observations, you will need to assess this yourself on a visit.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that person-centred caring interactions, including the consistent use of preferred names, unhurried pace, and attentiveness to non-verbal cues, are strongly associated with lower rates of agitation and distress in people living with dementia.","watch_out":"Arrive for your visit without announcing the exact time, and watch how staff interact with residents in corridors and communal areas for at least 20 minutes before you meet the manager. Notice whether staff crouch to eye level, whether they use first names, and whether any resident appears to be waiting without acknowledgement."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good at the August 2025 inspection. Responsiveness covers whether the home tailors its offer to individual needs, including activities, social engagement, and end-of-life planning. The published summary does not describe specific activity programmes, individual engagement approaches for residents with advanced dementia, or how the home handles complaints and end-of-life planning. A Good rating is positive but, as with the other domains, the absence of specific evidence limits what can be said with confidence.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities and engagement feature in 21.4% of positive family reviews, and resident happiness is a theme in 27.1%. For people living with dementia, the research evidence is clear that group activities alone are not sufficient: people with more advanced dementia need one-to-one engagement, including everyday household tasks such as folding, sorting, or simple gardening, which provide a sense of purpose and continuity. The inspection does not describe whether Badgers Holt has this kind of individualised approach, so it is something to ask about and observe directly. Also ask about end-of-life planning, because a Good rating in Responsive should include evidence that the home supports residents and families through this stage with care and advance planning.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University review found that Montessori-based and task-based individual engagement approaches significantly reduce distress and increase wellbeing in people with moderate to advanced dementia, compared with group activity programmes alone.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what happened yesterday for a resident who is unable to join group sessions. If they cannot give you a specific answer, the one-to-one provision may be limited."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Requires Improvement at the August 2025 inspection. This is the most significant finding in the report and covers management oversight, governance systems, staff culture, and the home's ability to identify and act on problems. The registered manager, Adam Farral, is also the nominated individual for the provider, meaning he holds overall accountability for the home's operation. The published summary does not detail what specific concerns the inspectors identified. A Requires Improvement in Well-led does not mean the home is unsafe, but it does mean that the systems designed to keep everything else on track were not fully adequate at the time of inspection.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management quality is one of the hardest things to assess from the outside, but it is one of the most important. Our review data shows that visible, accessible management features in 23.4% of positive family reviews, and the Good Practice evidence base is clear that leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of care quality over time. A Requires Improvement in Well-led means that inspectors found something that needed to change, and you deserve to know what it was and what has been done about it since August 2025. This is not a reason to rule the home out, but it is a reason to ask harder questions than you might otherwise ask. Good managers welcome those questions.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University review found that leadership stability and a culture in which staff feel safe to raise concerns are among the strongest predictors of sustained care quality in residential dementia settings.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly: what did the August 2025 inspection identify as the reason for the Requires Improvement in Well-led, what specific changes have been made since then, and what evidence can they show you that those changes are working? If they cannot answer clearly, that is itself informative."}

  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 Badgers Holt specialises in residential care for adults over 65, including those living with dementia.. Gaps or open questions remain on The home welcomes residents with dementia as part of their care provision. Their experienced team works to support people at different stages of their dementia journey. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.