Horsell Lodge | Care Home in Surrey

What families say

Visitors describe staff who make time to chat and answer questions properly. Several families have mentioned how much easier the moving-in process felt with practical help from the team. There's talk of residents who were initially resistant to care becoming genuinely content once they'd settled.

Based on 11 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness70
• Activities & engagement68
• Food quality68
• Healthcare70
• Management & leadership74
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2021-10-20 · Report published 2021-10-20 · Inspected 2 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Horsell Lodge was rated Good for safety at its March 2024 inspection. The home is registered to provide nursing care alongside personal care, and treats disease, disorder, or injury, indicating a clinical team is on site. Beyond the rating itself, the published report does not provide specific detail about staffing levels, medicines management, falls recording, or infection control observations. The home cares for up to 70 people with a range of complex needs including dementia and physical disabilities, which makes staffing ratios and night cover particularly important questions for families.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safety rating is reassuring, but the research is clear that safety risks in care homes most often emerge at night and during staffing transitions. The Good Practice evidence base identifies night staffing as the area where safety most commonly slips, particularly in homes with high occupancy and complex needs. For a 70-bed nursing home with a dementia specialism, you should not assume that a Good rating means night staffing is consistently strong; it means inspectors were satisfied on the day they visited. Ask for the actual rota from last week, not a template, and count how many permanent staff were on each night shift.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that night staffing ratios and reliance on agency staff are two of the strongest predictors of safety incidents in care homes, and are frequently under-scrutinised in inspection processes.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not the planned template. Count the number of permanent versus agency staff on night shifts, and ask what the minimum number of carers on duty overnight is for 70 residents."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Horsell Lodge was rated Good for effectiveness at its March 2024 inspection. The home is registered for dementia care, physical disabilities, and sensory impairments, which requires staff to hold and apply specialist knowledge across several areas. The published report does not describe the content of training programmes, how care plans are structured, how regularly they are reviewed, or how the home manages access to GPs and other health professionals. Food quality and dietary support are also not described in the available text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia care setting depends heavily on two things: whether care plans genuinely reflect who your parent is as a person, including their history, preferences, and communication style, and whether staff have had meaningful dementia training rather than just completing an online module. The Good Practice evidence base identifies care plans as living documents that should be updated regularly and used actively by all staff, not filed away. Our family review data shows that food quality is cited in 20.9% of positive reviews, making it one of the more visible markers of genuine care. The inspection findings do not currently let us assess either of these for Horsell Lodge, so both are worth exploring directly on a visit.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that dementia-specific training covering non-verbal communication, behavioural understanding, and person-centred approaches produces measurable improvements in resident wellbeing, but only when it is applied consistently in day-to-day practice rather than delivered as a one-off session.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how often care plans are reviewed and whether families are invited to take part. Then ask to see an anonymised example of how a care plan records a resident's personal history and daily preferences, not just their medical needs."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Horsell Lodge was rated Good for caring at its March 2024 inspection. This is the domain most closely linked to family satisfaction in our review data. The published report does not include inspector observations about how staff interact with residents, whether people are addressed by their preferred names, whether care is delivered without rushing, or how staff respond when someone is distressed. The absence of specific detail means this Good rating cannot be unpacked further from the published text alone.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of satisfaction in our family review data, cited in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity feature in 55.2%. These are not abstract qualities; they show up in specific moments: whether a carer knocks before entering a room, whether your dad is called by the name he prefers, whether a member of staff sits with your mum when she is confused rather than moving on to the next task. The Good Practice evidence base highlights that for people living with dementia, non-verbal communication, tone of voice, unhurried physical contact, and calm body language, can matter more than words. A Good rating in the caring domain tells you inspectors were satisfied. A visit will tell you whether what you observe matches that.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research review found that person-centred care in dementia requires staff to know each individual's life history and communication patterns, and that this knowledge is only effective when it is shared consistently across the whole team, including night staff and agency workers.","watch_out":"When you visit, walk through a communal area or corridor and notice how staff interact with the people who live there. Are interactions unhurried? Do staff use names? Do they make eye contact and pause to listen? These small moments are more reliable than any brochure."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Horsell Lodge was rated Good for responsiveness at its March 2024 inspection. The home accepts people with dementia, physical disabilities, and sensory impairments, which means the activities programme and individual engagement need to be adapted to a wide range of abilities and communication styles. The published report does not describe the activities offered, how they are tailored to individuals, whether one-to-one engagement is provided for people who cannot join groups, or how end-of-life care is planned and delivered.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness features in 27.1% of our positive family reviews, and activities and engagement in 21.4%. For people living with dementia, group activities in a lounge are often not the right fit, particularly for those at a more advanced stage. The Good Practice evidence base highlights Montessori-based approaches and everyday household tasks, such as folding, watering plants, or looking through familiar objects, as more effective than structured group sessions for many people with dementia. The key question for Horsell Lodge is not whether activities happen, but whether your parent would have something meaningful to do on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon if they could not or did not want to join a group.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found strong evidence that individualised, task-based activities rooted in a person's life history produce better wellbeing outcomes for people with dementia than group entertainment programmes, and that one-to-one engagement time is a reliable marker of quality in specialist dementia care.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what would happen for your parent on a day when they could not or did not want to join a group session. Ask specifically whether staff provide one-to-one engagement, and how that is recorded in the care plan."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"Horsell Lodge was rated Good for leadership at its March 2024 inspection. A named Registered Manager, Mrs Julie Gladys Bignell, was in post, and Mrs Rebecca Garwood is listed as Nominated Individual for the operating organisation, Avom Care Limited. The published report does not describe how long the current manager has been in post, how staff are supported and supervised, whether there is a clear process for raising concerns, or how the home acts on feedback from residents and families.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management leadership is linked to 23.4% of positive family reviews in our data, and communication with families to 11.5%. The Good Practice evidence base is clear that leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of quality over time: homes where managers stay in post and are known to residents and staff by name tend to maintain and improve standards, while homes that rely on interim or frequently changing managers are more likely to see quality drift. The inspection confirms a manager is in post and a Good rating was awarded, but it does not tell you how long she has been there or what the culture feels like from the inside. Both are worth asking about.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research rapid evidence review found that stable, visible leadership with a strong bottom-up culture, where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear, is one of the most consistent predictors of sustained quality in care homes over time.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly how long she has been in post at Horsell Lodge and whether there have been significant changes to the senior team in the past 12 months. Then ask how a member of staff or a family member would raise a concern, and what would happen next."}

  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 people with various needs including dementia, physical disabilities and sensory impairments. They support both younger adults under 65 and older residents.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents with dementia, the focus appears to be on helping them settle comfortably into their new surroundings. Staff work to understand each person's needs during the transition period. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.