Waterside Care Home – Minster Care Group

What families say

Visitors have found the care team approachable and friendly when they've come to see loved ones. Some families describe feeling comfortable with the standard of care their relatives receive.

Based on 6 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth55
• Compassion & dignity55
• Cleanliness55
• Activities & engagement35
• Food quality50
• Healthcare60
• Management & leadership65
• Resident happiness50

What inspectors found

Inspected 2024-01-26 · Report published 2024-01-26 · Inspected 4 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the December 2023 inspection, representing an improvement from the previous cycle. The inspection report does not provide granular detail on staffing ratios, agency use, or night staffing numbers in the published text available here. Medicines management and infection control fall within this domain and inspectors found no concerns sufficient to prevent a Good rating. Falls management and incident learning are markers of a safe home, though specific observations on these are not recorded in the available text.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating in Safe is reassuring, but it tells you the floor was met rather than the ceiling. Good Practice research consistently shows that night staffing is where safety most often slips in care homes, yet this is rarely the focus of a daytime inspection. Our family review data shows that staff attentiveness accounts for 14% of positive family comments, meaning families notice when someone is watching out for their parent. Because the published report does not give you specific numbers, you need to ask directly about staffing levels, particularly after 8pm, and about how the home has changed its safety practices since the previous Requires Improvement rating.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that agency staff reliance undermines consistency of care, particularly for people with dementia who rely on familiar faces and routines. A home with low agency use and stable permanent staff is a significantly safer environment for your parent.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you last week's actual staffing rota for the night shift, not the template rota. Count how many permanent staff names appear versus agency names, and ask what the home's current agency usage rate is as a percentage of total hours."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"Effective was rated Good at the December 2023 inspection. This domain covers training, care planning, GP access, and how well the home manages nutrition and hydration. The published report does not provide specific observations on care plan quality, dementia training content, or food quality beyond what the rating implies. A Good rating indicates inspectors were satisfied that staff have the skills and knowledge to meet residents' needs, and that care plans and healthcare access were functioning adequately.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"For a home that includes dementia as a specialism, Effective really matters. Good Practice evidence from the Leeds Beckett review of 61 studies found that dementia-specific training, particularly training that goes beyond a basic awareness certificate, directly improves the quality of daily interactions with your parent. Food quality is also a meaningful signal: 20.9% of positive family reviews in our dataset mention it by name, and a home that gets food right tends to get other caring details right too. Because the report gives you a rating rather than specific evidence, ask to see a sample care plan and ask what dementia training staff have completed in the last 12 months.","evidence_base":"The Good Practice evidence base identifies care plans as living documents that should be reviewed regularly and updated when a person's condition changes. A care plan that reflects your parent's current preferences, communication style, and health needs, rather than one written on admission and left unchanged, is one of the strongest indicators of genuinely effective care.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how often care plans are formally reviewed and request to see the most recent review date on a current resident's plan. Also ask what specific dementia training staff have completed, beyond a basic induction, and whether there is a named dementia lead in the home."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"Caring was rated Good at the December 2023 inspection. This domain covers how warmly and respectfully staff treat the people in their care, including dignity, privacy, and how well they support independence. The published report available here does not include direct inspector observations or resident and family testimony in the extracted text, so specific examples of kind interactions are not available to report. The Good rating indicates inspectors did not find concerns in this area and were satisfied that the standard of caring interactions met the threshold for Good.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned in 57.3% of positive family reviews, and compassion and dignity together account for 55.2%. These are the things families feel most acutely when they visit. Good Practice research emphasises that for people with advanced dementia, non-verbal communication, tone of voice, pace of movement, and physical gentleness, matters as much as words. Because the published report does not give you specific observations to rely on, a visit is essential. Arrive unannounced if you can, or at a time that was not pre-arranged, and watch how staff greet your parent in a corridor or common room when they do not know you are watching.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review found that person-led care requires staff to know each individual well, including their personal history, preferred name, communication style, and what causes them distress. Homes where staff have this knowledge and use it consistently produce measurably better emotional outcomes for people living with dementia.","watch_out":"When you visit, listen for whether staff use your parent's preferred name or a generic term. Watch whether a staff member stops what they are doing to acknowledge a resident who is showing signs of distress, or walks past. These two behaviours tell you more than any rating."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"Responsive was rated Requires Improvement at the December 2023 inspection, making it the only domain not to achieve a Good rating. This domain covers how well the home responds to individual needs, including activities, engagement, complaints handling, and end-of-life planning. The fact that this domain remained at Requires Improvement, even as the other four domains improved to Good, suggests the home has more work to do in how it tailors daily life to each person. The specific concerns recorded by inspectors are not detailed in the published text available here, but the rating itself is a clear signal that something was found to be insufficient.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"This is the domain that most directly affects your parent's quality of life day to day, and it is the one area where the inspection found things were not good enough. Our review data shows that resident happiness accounts for 27.1% of positive family comments and activities engagement for 21.4%, meaning families notice and value both. Good Practice evidence is clear that for people with dementia, meaningful occupation does not have to mean group activities; one-to-one engagement, household tasks, and sensory activities tailored to the individual are often more effective. A Requires Improvement here is a genuine concern, not a minor technicality, and you should press the manager specifically on what has changed since the inspection.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett review found that Montessori-based and individually tailored activity approaches, including involvement in everyday household tasks, produce better wellbeing outcomes for people with dementia than group activity programmes alone. Homes that rely primarily on scheduled group activities often leave people with advanced dementia unstimulated for large parts of the day.","watch_out":"Ask the manager what specific changes have been made to activities and individual engagement since the December 2023 inspection. Then ask to see the activities schedule for last week and check whether it includes one-to-one sessions alongside group activities. Ask how the home supports residents who cannot or do not want to join group sessions."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Good

  {"found":"Well-led was rated Good at the December 2023 inspection, contributing to the home's overall improvement from the previous cycle. A named registered manager, Mrs Penelope Jane Cottrill, is in post, and the nominated individual is Mr Colin William Farebrother. The organisation running the home is Minster Care Management Limited. A Good rating in this domain indicates inspectors were satisfied that governance systems, staff culture, and management oversight were functioning adequately. Specific observations on manager visibility, staff empowerment, or how the home learns from incidents are not detailed in the published text available here.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Good Practice research is clear that leadership stability predicts quality trajectory. A home with a settled, visible manager in post is significantly more likely to maintain and improve its standards than one with frequent management changes. Our family review data shows that management quality accounts for 23.4% of positive family comments, and communication with families for 11.5%. The improvement from Requires Improvement to Good overall is a meaningful positive signal, but the persistence of Requires Improvement in Responsive suggests the leadership team still has unfinished work. Ask the manager how long they have been in post and what their specific plans are for addressing the Responsive rating.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett evidence review found that homes where staff feel empowered to raise concerns and where managers are visibly present on the floor, rather than office-based, show consistently better care outcomes. A culture where bottom-up feedback reaches leadership and leads to change is one of the strongest predictors of sustained quality.","watch_out":"Ask the registered manager how long she has been in post at Waterside Care Centre specifically, and ask what the most significant change she has made since the previous inspection is. If she can answer both questions with specific detail, that is a good sign. If the answers are vague, that tells you something important about how grounded the leadership is in day-to-day care."}

  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 specialises in caring for adults over 65 and those under 65 who need support. They have experience supporting people living with dementia.. Gaps or open questions remain on For residents with dementia, the team works to provide care that meets individual needs. The home accepts residents at different stages of their dementia journey. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.