The Old Vicarage

What families say

Families describe finding their loved ones well-cared for at all hours, with staff who know each resident's individual needs and preferences. The home organises seasonal celebrations and regular activities that bring residents together, with families welcomed to join in whenever they can.

Based on 13 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 2023-01-28 · Report published 2023-01-28 · Inspected 3 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the August 2022 inspection. The published report does not provide detailed narrative about specific safety observations, staffing ratios, medicines management, or falls records. The home supports people with dementia, physical disabilities, and sensory impairments, which means safe systems for moving and handling, night supervision, and risk management are all relevant. The improvement from the previous Requires Improvement overall rating suggests safety concerns identified earlier have been addressed to inspectors' satisfaction.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating in Safe is a baseline you need, not a ceiling to aim for. Our Good Practice evidence highlights that night staffing is where safety most often slips in smaller residential homes, and a 33-bed home like this one will typically have a small team on overnight. The published findings do not record specific night staffing numbers, which means you will need to ask directly. Agency staff usage is another marker worth checking: consistent, familiar faces matter especially for people with dementia, who can become distressed around unfamiliar carers. The upward trend from Requires Improvement to Good is genuinely reassuring, but it is worth confirming what specific changes were made.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that agency reliance and low night staffing ratios are among the most consistent predictors of safety incidents in residential dementia care. Continuity of staff, not just adequate numbers, is what the evidence links to better outcomes.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you last week's actual staffing rota, not the template. Count how many shifts were covered by permanent staff versus agency workers, and ask specifically how many carers are on duty overnight for the 33 residents."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good. The home cares for people with dementia, adults under 65, those with physical disabilities, and people with sensory impairments, which requires staff to hold a range of specialist knowledge. The published report does not include detail about care plan content, GP access frequency, dementia training completion, or food quality observations. The Good rating indicates inspectors were satisfied with what they found, but the available text does not allow a more specific account of what that looked like in practice.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating in Effective tells you that inspectors believed staff knew what they were doing and that care plans and healthcare access met the standard. What the rating cannot tell you, and what the published text does not cover, is how often care plans are reviewed with families, whether the dementia training staff receive goes beyond a basic online module, and how individual dietary needs and preferences are managed. Food quality is the 20.9% theme in our family review data, and it consistently appears in both positive and negative reviews as a marker of how much genuine thought goes into daily life. The inspection did not record specific detail on mealtimes here, so this is worth observing yourself on a visit.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies care plans as living documents that should be updated with family input after any significant change in the person's condition. Homes that treat care plans as administrative paperwork rather than working guides tend to miss early signs of deterioration.","watch_out":"Ask to see a sample of how care plans are structured, and ask how recently your parent's plan would be reviewed after they moved in. Find out specifically what dementia training staff have completed and whether it covers non-verbal communication and behaviour as communication."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good. This domain covers how staff interact with the people who live in the home, including whether dignity is respected, whether people are addressed by their preferred names, and whether care is given without rushing. The published report text does not include direct inspector observations of staff interactions or quotes from residents or relatives about the quality of daily care. The Good rating indicates inspectors were satisfied with what they observed, but the level of detail available to families is limited.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of positive family reviews in our data, appearing in 57.3% of all positive responses, and compassion and dignity together account for 55.2%. These are not minor nice-to-haves. They are what families tell us matters most when they look back on whether they made the right choice. The inspection reached a Good rating here, which is meaningful, but without specific recorded observations it is not possible to describe exactly what warmth looked like in this home on inspection day. What the Good Practice evidence consistently shows is that the observable signals, whether staff knock before entering a room, whether your parent is called by the name they prefer, whether carers sit at eye level rather than standing over someone, are the ones worth watching for on your visit.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review found that non-verbal communication is as important as spoken interaction for people with advanced dementia. Staff who respond to facial expression, posture, and tone of voice, rather than relying solely on what a person can say, produce measurably better wellbeing outcomes.","watch_out":"When you visit, watch what happens in a corridor or communal area when a member of staff passes a resident. Do they slow down, make eye contact, and use the person's name? That unrehearsed moment tells you more than any planned tour."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good. This domain covers whether the home offers meaningful activities, whether care is tailored to the individual rather than delivered in a one-size-fits-all way, and whether end-of-life planning is in place. The home supports people with dementia and physical disabilities, which means individual activity planning and one-to-one engagement are particularly relevant. The published report does not record specific observations about the activity programme, one-to-one engagement, or end-of-life arrangements.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Activities and engagement appear in 21.4% of positive family reviews, and resident happiness accounts for 27.1%. For people with dementia especially, meaningful daily engagement, not just a group singalong once a week, is linked in the Good Practice evidence to reduced distress and better physical health. The published findings do not tell us whether the home offers one-to-one activities for people who cannot join a group, whether activity planning reflects each person's history and interests, or how the home supports people whose dementia is advanced. These are questions worth asking directly, because the gap between a well-planned activity schedule on paper and what actually happens at 3pm on a Tuesday can be significant.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research review found that Montessori-based approaches and everyday household task involvement, folding, sorting, simple food preparation, produce better sustained engagement in people with dementia than structured group activity programmes alone, particularly for those in later stages.","watch_out":"Ask what happens for a resident who cannot join a group activity because of their dementia or physical condition. Ask to see the activity log for the past two weeks and check whether one-to-one time is recorded alongside group sessions."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Requires Improvement at the August 2022 inspection. This is the one area where the home had not recovered fully from its previous overall Requires Improvement rating. The registered manager is listed as Mr Lewis Melvin Fenn, with Mr Bradley William Birmingham as nominated individual. The published report text does not specify what aspects of leadership or governance fell short, how significant the concerns were, or what the home was required to put in place. This Requires Improvement rating means inspectors found something that needed fixing and had not yet been resolved at the time of the visit.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Leadership stability is one of the strongest predictors of care quality over time. Our Good Practice evidence found that homes with settled, visible management tend to perform consistently better across all other domains, and that staff who feel able to speak up about concerns produce better outcomes for the people they care for. The Requires Improvement here is not a reason to rule out this home, particularly given the overall upward trajectory, but it does mean you should go in with specific questions. The inspection was in August 2022 and published in January 2023, so a significant period has passed. Ask whether a further inspection has taken place, what the specific governance concern was, and what was changed as a result.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review identified manager tenure and bottom-up staff empowerment as two of the most reliable indicators of sustained care quality. Homes where the manager is known by name to residents and families, and where staff feel confident raising concerns, consistently outperform homes where leadership is more distant or frequently changing.","watch_out":"Ask the registered manager directly: what did the Requires Improvement in Well-led refer to, what specific changes were made after the inspection, and has the home had any contact with inspectors since January 2023? A manager who can answer clearly and without deflection is itself a reassuring sign."}

  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 sensory impairments, physical disabilities, and adults under 65 who need residential support. They also provide specialist dementia care.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents living with dementia, the staff adapt their approach as conditions change, working closely with families to maintain quality of life. The team's experience with complex needs means they can provide appropriate support through different stages of dementia. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.