St Mark's Court Care Home

What families say

Based on 7 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness65
• Activities & engagement55
• Food quality55
• Healthcare65
• Management & leadership42
• Resident happiness65

What inspectors found

Inspected 2022-10-07 · Report published 2022-10-07 · Inspected 8 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the September 2022 inspection. This indicates that inspectors were satisfied with medicines management, staffing arrangements, and safeguarding processes at the time of the visit. The home had previously been rated Requires Improvement, so achieving Good in this domain represents genuine progress. However, the published summary does not include specific observations about night staffing numbers, agency staff use, or how incidents such as falls are recorded and reviewed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good Safe rating tells you that, at inspection, the home met the standard for protecting residents from harm. However, safety in a nursing home caring for people with dementia is often most vulnerable at night, and the Good Practice evidence base identifies night staffing as the single most common point where safety slips. The published findings do not confirm how many staff are on overnight for 60 residents, or how heavily the home relies on agency cover. Given the home's previous Requires Improvement, it is worth asking specifically about what changed and whether those changes have held.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that agency staff reliance is one of the clearest predictors of inconsistent safety in care homes, particularly on night shifts where permanent staff familiarity with individual residents matters most.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not a template. Count how many shifts were covered by agency staff, especially overnight, and ask what the minimum number of staff on duty is for 60 residents at night."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"Effective was rated Good at the September 2022 inspection. This domain covers training, care planning, healthcare access, and nutrition. The Good rating suggests inspectors found these areas to be working adequately at the time of the visit. The home is registered as a nursing home, meaning a registered nurse should be on duty at all times, which is an important baseline for healthcare oversight. Specific detail about dementia training content, care plan review frequency, or GP access arrangements is not available in the published summary.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"If your parent has dementia, the quality of care planning matters enormously, not as a paperwork exercise but as a living record of who your parent is, what they like, and what distresses them. A Good Effective rating is a positive signal, but 20.9% of positive family reviews in our data mention food quality specifically as a marker of genuine care, and 20.2% mention healthcare responsiveness. Neither is confirmed in specific detail here. The Good Practice evidence base tells us that care plans should be reviewed at least monthly for people with rapidly changing needs, and families should be actively included in those reviews.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that care plans used as genuinely dynamic documents, updated with family input and reflecting day-to-day changes in a person's condition, are associated with significantly better outcomes for people with dementia compared to plans that are completed at admission and rarely revisited.","watch_out":"Ask to see how your parent's preferences, history, and daily routine would be recorded. Ask how often care plans are reviewed and whether you would be invited to take part. Ask specifically who is responsible for ordering GP reviews and how quickly that happens when a resident's condition changes."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"Caring was rated Good at the September 2022 inspection. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, and whether residents are treated as individuals. A Good rating indicates inspectors did not observe concerning interactions and found sufficient evidence of respectful care. The published summary does not include direct quotes from residents or relatives, nor specific observations about how staff address residents, respond to distress, or protect privacy during personal care.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. When families look back on a placement and say it was the right choice, it is almost always because they felt staff genuinely knew and cared about their parent as a person. The Good Caring rating here is encouraging, but without specific inspector observations or resident testimony in the published report, you cannot verify this from the document alone. Observe it yourself: watch how staff greet your parent on arrival, whether they use their preferred name, and whether anyone is left waiting without acknowledgement.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies non-verbal communication as equally important as spoken interaction for people with advanced dementia. Staff who crouch to eye level, maintain calm body language, and respond to emotional cues rather than just words are associated with lower levels of distressed behaviour and better resident wellbeing.","watch_out":"During your visit, watch how a member of staff approaches a resident who appears unsettled or confused. Do they slow down, use the resident's name, and respond to the emotion rather than just the behaviour? This is one of the most reliable indicators of genuine dementia care quality."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"Responsive was rated Good at the September 2022 inspection. This domain covers how well the home tailors care to individual needs, including activities, complaint handling, and end-of-life planning. The home cares for people with a wide range of needs including dementia, learning disabilities, and physical disabilities, which means the activities and engagement programme needs to be genuinely varied and adaptable. The published summary does not include specific information about what activities are provided, how the home supports residents who cannot join group sessions, or how complaints are handled.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities matter more than many families initially expect. Our review data shows that resident happiness and engagement is the third most mentioned theme in positive family reviews, cited in 27.1% of cases. For people with dementia in particular, the Good Practice evidence base shows that meaningful, individually tailored activity, including familiar household tasks and one-to-one engagement, reduces distress and supports a sense of identity. A Good Responsive rating is positive, but the published report gives no detail about what a typical day looks like at St Marks Court. Ask to see the actual activity schedule rather than a promotional summary.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett review found that Montessori-based and everyday-task approaches to activity, where residents are supported to do familiar things such as folding, sorting, or simple cooking, produce measurably better engagement and wellbeing outcomes than group entertainment activities alone, particularly for people with moderate to advanced dementia.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator what happened last Tuesday for a resident who could not get out of bed. Was there any one-to-one engagement, or would that person have had no meaningful interaction beyond personal care? The answer tells you more than any activity schedule on the wall."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"Well-led was rated Requires Improvement at the September 2022 inspection, the only domain not to achieve Good. This means that while day-to-day care had improved sufficiently to be rated Good, the management systems, governance processes, and leadership culture were not yet fully effective. The home is managed by a registered manager and sits within the Akari Care group. The published summary does not explain what specific governance failures were identified, which makes it difficult to assess how serious the concerns were or how much progress has been made since the inspection.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Requires Improvement in Well-led matters more than it might first appear. Management leadership stability is the theme our data associates most closely with whether a home sustains its quality over time, rather than simply performing well during an inspection. Good Practice research is clear that leadership stability predicts quality trajectory, and that homes where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear tend to maintain better care standards. The specific concerns at St Marks Court are not described in the published findings, which is itself a reason to ask direct questions before committing to a placement. Our data shows that 23.4% of positive family reviews mention visible and approachable management as a key factor in their confidence in a home.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that care homes where front-line staff feel empowered to raise concerns and where managers are visible and known to residents by name consistently outperform homes where leadership is primarily administrative, regardless of the size of the organisation.","watch_out":"Ask to meet the registered manager in person, not just a senior carer or deputy. Ask how long they have been in post, what the Well-led inspection concerns were, and what specific actions were taken to address them. If the manager cannot describe the improvement actions clearly and specifically, that is itself a signal worth weighing carefully."}

  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 team here works with residents who have dementia, learning disabilities, and physical disabilities. They support both younger adults under 65 and older people, which means they're used to adapting their approach to different life stages and care requirements.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents with dementia, the home has experience supporting people at different stages of their journey. The mix of ages and abilities means staff are practiced at creating individual approaches rather than one-size-fits-all care. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.