Ferfoot Care Home

What families say

Visitors often comment on the friendly manner of staff here and the way they take time with residents. There's a flexibility in how new residents settle in, with the management adapting their approach to suit different circumstances and needs.

Based on 23 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth55
• Compassion & dignity58
• Cleanliness60
• Activities & engagement52
• Food quality52
• Healthcare58
• Management & leadership42
• Resident happiness55

What inspectors found

Inspected 2022-01-18 · Report published 2022-01-18 · Inspected 7 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"Ferfoot Care Home was rated Good for Safety at the December 2021 inspection. The published report does not include specific detail about staffing ratios, falls management, medicines administration, or infection control practices observed during the visit. The Safe rating represents an improvement from the previous inspection cycle. Beyond the domain rating itself, the published summary does not record inspector observations, resident testimony, or record review findings in this area.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good Safety rating is a reassuring baseline, but it tells you less than you might hope without the detail behind it. Good Practice research from the IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review highlights that safety most often slips at night, when staffing is thinner and oversight is reduced. For a 52-bed home with a dementia specialism, the overnight staffing ratio matters enormously. The published findings do not confirm what that ratio is, so this is the single most important thing to ask before making a decision. Agency staff reliance is a related concern, as consistent faces matter for people living with dementia who rely on familiar routines.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence review found that night staffing levels are the point at which safety incidents are most likely to occur in residential dementia care, and that homes relying heavily on agency staff show higher rates of avoidable harm due to a lack of continuity.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you last week's actual overnight rota, not the template. Count how many permanent carers were on duty overnight across the whole home and ask how many of those shifts were filled by agency staff."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good at the December 2021 inspection. Dementia is listed as a specialism of the home, meaning the home is expected to demonstrate relevant training and care approaches. The published summary does not include specific observations about care plan quality, GP access, medicines management, or the content of dementia training provided to staff. The rating alone confirms a satisfactory level of practice was evidenced during the inspection, but the detail behind that finding is not available in the published report.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good Effective rating means inspectors were satisfied that the home knows what it is doing in terms of training and care planning. However, for families of someone with dementia, the detail behind this rating matters more than the label. Care plans should be living documents, updated after any change in your parent's health or behaviour, not filed away after admission. Good Practice research is clear that dementia training needs to go beyond a basic online module: it should cover communication approaches, behaviour that may signal unmet need, and how to support someone at different stages. Food quality is also part of this domain, and the inspection does not confirm whether residents are offered genuine choice or whether dietary needs linked to dementia are understood.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that dementia training which addresses non-verbal communication and person-centred approaches produces measurably better outcomes for residents, compared with tick-box compliance training alone.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator or a senior carer to describe, in their own words, how they would respond if your parent stopped eating or became withdrawn. The quality of that answer tells you more about real dementia competence than any training certificate."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good at the December 2021 inspection. This is the domain families feel most strongly about, covering staff warmth, dignity, and how residents are treated day to day. The published report does not include direct quotes from residents or relatives, nor specific inspector observations about how staff interacted with people living there. The Good rating means inspectors were satisfied with the evidence seen during the visit, but without supporting detail it is not possible to confirm what that evidence was.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the most important factor in family satisfaction, appearing in 57.3% of positive reviews across our dataset of over 3,600 family reviews. Compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. These are not abstract qualities; they show up in specific, observable moments: whether a carer uses your parent's preferred name, whether they knock before entering a room, whether they crouch down to make eye contact rather than talking from above. The inspection confirms a Good rating but does not tell you whether these moments were actually observed. You need to see this for yourself on a visit, preferably unannounced or at a time the home is not expecting you.","evidence_base":"Good Practice research confirms that for people with advanced dementia who may not be able to report their own experience verbally, non-verbal signals such as body language, facial expression, and the pace of carer interactions are the most reliable indicators of whether a caring culture is genuine.","watch_out":"During your visit, watch what happens when a carer passes a resident in a corridor. Do they make eye contact, use the resident's name, and pause even briefly? Or do they walk past without acknowledgement? That small moment is one of the clearest signals of the home's actual caring culture."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good at the December 2021 inspection. This domain covers activities, engagement, and how well the home responds to individual needs and preferences. The home lists dementia as a specialism and cares for both adults over 65 and adults under 65, meaning it needs to offer varied and age-appropriate activities. The published report does not include specific examples of activities offered, evidence of individual activity planning, or information about how residents who cannot join group sessions are supported.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness is referenced in 27.1% of positive family reviews, and activity engagement in 21.4%. For someone with dementia, a good activity programme is not a weekly bingo session: it is the difference between a day that has shape and meaning and one that is spent sitting in a chair. Good Practice research strongly supports individual, one-to-one engagement for people at more advanced stages of dementia, including Montessori-based approaches and involvement in everyday household tasks. The inspection confirms a Good rating but does not tell you whether the home offers this level of individual tailoring. This is particularly important if your parent is living with moderate or advanced dementia.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett evidence review found that individual, tailored activity, including tasks that mirror familiar domestic routines, produces significantly better wellbeing outcomes for people with dementia than group-only programmes.","watch_out":"Ask to see the activity records for a specific resident similar in needs to your parent, not just the general programme. Ask what would happen on a day your parent did not want to leave their room: who would spend time with them and how?"}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Requires Improvement at the December 2021 inspection, the one area where the home did not achieve a Good rating. A registered manager, Mrs Claire Louise Prangle, is named in the report, and a nominated individual, Ms Rachel Harvey, is listed at provider level. The published summary does not explain what specific concerns were identified to produce the Requires Improvement rating, what actions were required of the home, or what timescale was set for improvement. This is a significant gap in publicly available information for families.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management leadership carries a 23.4% weight in our family review data, and Good Practice research consistently shows that leadership stability predicts quality trajectory more reliably than any single care measure. A Requires Improvement rating in Well-led at a home that improved in all other domains suggests the provider or manager still needs to demonstrate sustained governance and accountability. The concern is not necessarily about day-to-day kindness, which the Good Caring rating suggests is present, but about whether problems are identified early, acted on, and learned from. Without knowing what the specific Well-led concerns were, families should treat this as an active area of enquiry rather than a historical footnote.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that bottom-up leadership cultures, where staff feel safe to raise concerns and managers are consistently visible on the floor, are the strongest predictor of sustained quality improvement in care homes.","watch_out":"Ask the registered manager directly: what specific actions did the home take in response to the Requires Improvement rating in Well-led, and has there been any follow-up contact from the inspectorate since the December 2021 inspection? Ask also how long the current manager has been in post, as leadership continuity is one of the clearest signals of a stable culture."}

  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 care for adults over 65, younger adults with care needs, and people living with dementia. This mixed resident group means the team works with varying needs and conditions.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents with dementia, the home's person-centred approach means adapting care to individual circumstances. Staff work to understand personal preferences and respond to changing needs. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.