Fulford Care & Nursing Home | Agincare

What families say

Families often describe feeling welcomed by staff who show genuine warmth toward residents. The team appears to work hard at creating social connections through organized activities and individual attention. Many relatives appreciate how staff help residents settle in during what can be a difficult transition.

Based on 27 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth55
• Compassion & dignity55
• Cleanliness55
• Activities & engagement50
• Food quality50
• Healthcare55
• Management & leadership55
• Resident happiness55

What inspectors found

Inspected 2023-07-13 · Report published 2023-07-13 · Inspected 5 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Safety at its March 2024 inspection, recovering from a Requires Improvement rating in July 2023. The published text does not include specific detail about what inspectors observed in relation to medicines management, falls prevention, infection control, or night staffing. The improvement from Requires Improvement to Good in under a year is a positive signal, but the reasons for the earlier decline are not set out in the available text. No specific concerns about current safety were recorded in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating for safety will reassure you, but the prior Requires Improvement rating means you should ask what specifically went wrong and what changed. Good Practice research consistently identifies night staffing as the point where safety most commonly slips in nursing homes of this size, and agency reliance can undermine the consistency that keeps your parent safe. The available inspection text does not tell us what the staffing picture looks like after 8pm, so you will need to ask directly. For a 74-bed nursing home with a dementia specialism, knowing the permanent-to-agency ratio on nights is one of the most important questions you can ask.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that learning from incidents, rather than simply recording them, is one of the clearest markers of a genuinely safe care home. Homes that improved their safety ratings typically showed evidence of systematic review of falls and near-misses, not just individual incident logs.","watch_out":"Ask to see the action plan produced after the July 2023 Requires Improvement inspection and ask the manager to walk you through what changed. Then ask specifically: how many permanent staff, and how many agency staff, were on the night shift in the last seven days?"}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Effectiveness at its March 2024 inspection. The published text does not include specific observations about care plan quality, dementia training content, GP access arrangements, or food and nutrition. Fulford Care and Nursing Home has a registered manager in post and a nominated individual named in the registration, which provides a degree of governance structure. Beyond that, the available text does not allow for detailed assessment of how effectively care is delivered day to day.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia nursing home covers a wide range of things: whether care plans are updated as your parent's needs change, whether staff have specific training in dementia communication, whether a GP visits regularly, and whether mealtimes are genuinely tailored to individual preferences. Our family review data shows that food quality features in 20.9% of positive reviews and healthcare access in 20.2%, making both significant contributors to how families judge a home. None of these specifics are covered in the available inspection text, so you will need to probe them directly on a visit.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review identified care plans as living documents that should be updated at meaningful intervals, ideally with family involvement. Homes rated Good for Effectiveness typically showed care plans that reflected not just clinical needs but personal history, communication preferences, and daily routines, particularly for people living with dementia.","watch_out":"Ask to see a sample care plan for a resident with dementia (anonymised if needed) and ask how often plans are reviewed and who is involved in that review. Ask whether relatives are invited to contribute to care plan updates, and how that happens in practice."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Caring at its March 2024 inspection. The published text does not include specific inspector observations of staff interactions, quotes from residents or relatives about how staff treat them, or examples of how dignity and privacy are maintained in practice. The Good rating indicates that inspectors were satisfied with what they saw and heard, but the available text does not allow this report to describe what that evidence was.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned by name in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity features in 55.2%. These are the things families notice most, and they are also the things that matter most to your parent every single day. A Good rating for Caring is the most directly reassuring of all the domain ratings, but without specific observations from the inspection text, you cannot know what behaviour sat behind it. On your visit, pay attention to how staff speak to residents in corridors and communal areas, whether they knock before entering rooms, and whether they use the names your parent prefers.","evidence_base":"Good Practice research highlights that non-verbal communication matters as much as verbal communication for people living with dementia. Staff who crouch to eye level, make calm eye contact, and move without rushing convey safety and warmth even when words are hard to process. This is an observable signal you can watch for on any visit.","watch_out":"Spend time in a communal area before your formal meeting with the manager. Watch how staff move through the space, whether they acknowledge residents they pass, and whether any resident appears to be sitting without engagement for a prolonged period. These observations will tell you more than any document."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Responsiveness at its March 2024 inspection. The published text does not include specific detail about the activities programme, how the home supports residents with advanced dementia who cannot join group activities, or how individual preferences are captured and acted on. The home's specialism includes dementia care, which implies some tailoring of the environment and programme, but the inspection text does not describe what that looks like in practice.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities and engagement feature in 21.4% of positive family reviews, and resident happiness overall drives 27.1% of positive sentiment in our data. For someone living with dementia, meaningful occupation during the day, whether that is a group activity, a one-to-one conversation, or a familiar household task, has a direct impact on wellbeing and on how settled they are at night. The inspection text does not tell us whether this home offers one-to-one engagement for residents who cannot join groups, which is a critical question for advanced dementia. Good Practice evidence strongly supports tailored individual activity over group-only programmes.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review found that Montessori-based approaches and the incorporation of familiar household tasks, such as folding, sorting, or simple food preparation, produced measurable improvements in engagement and wellbeing for people with moderate to advanced dementia. Homes that offered only scheduled group activities showed lower engagement rates for this group.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator what happens for a resident who cannot or does not want to join a group session. Ask for a specific example from last week, not a general description of the approach. If the answer is that residents sit in their room or in a communal area without structured engagement, that is worth weighing carefully."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The home was rated Good for Well-led at its March 2024 inspection, recovering from a Requires Improvement rating in July 2023. The registered manager is Mrs Sarah Denice Hart, and the nominated individual is Mrs Raina Marina Taylor Taylor-Summerson. The fact that named individuals are in post and the home recovered to Good within approximately eight months of a lower rating suggests active leadership engagement. The published text does not include specific detail about management visibility, staff culture, governance processes, or how the home handles complaints.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of care quality over time, according to Good Practice research. The presence of a named registered manager matters, but what matters more is whether that manager is known to residents and staff, whether staff feel able to raise concerns, and whether the home has systems for learning from what goes wrong. The move from Requires Improvement back to Good in under a year is a genuinely positive signal, but it also raises the question of what caused the dip. Our family review data shows that communication with families features in 11.5% of positive reviews, so ask specifically how the home keeps you informed if something changes with your parent.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research evidence review found that homes with empowered, stable leadership teams, where staff at all levels felt their concerns were heard and acted on, consistently outperformed homes where accountability sat only at the top. A bottom-up culture, where a care assistant can raise a concern and see it addressed, is a stronger indicator of quality than any single manager's credentials.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly: what did the July 2023 inspection find, what was the action plan, and what is different now? A manager who answers this question specifically and without defensiveness is demonstrating exactly the kind of leadership the evidence base associates with sustained improvement."}

  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 cares for adults over 65 and has experience supporting people living with dementia.. Gaps or open questions remain on While the home accepts residents with dementia, families should ask detailed questions about staffing levels and supervision arrangements to ensure their loved one's specific needs can be met safely. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.