Wendleberrie House

What families say

Visitors often mention how warmly they're greeted and how the whole house feels calm and welcoming. The atmosphere puts people at ease from the moment they walk in. Families appreciate the regular updates about how their relatives are doing, keeping everyone connected.

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

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth65
• Compassion & dignity65
• Cleanliness60
• Activities & engagement55
• Food quality55
• Healthcare60
• Management & leadership42
• Resident happiness60

What inspectors found

Inspected 2019-02-15 · Report published 2019-02-15 · Inspected 3 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Good

  {"found":"The safe domain was rated Good at the March 2021 inspection. This covers staffing levels, medicines management, infection control, and how the home responds to accidents and incidents. No specific inspector observations, resident testimony, or detail about staffing numbers or falls logging are recorded in the published summary. The home supports people with dementia and physical disabilities, where consistent and attentive staffing is particularly important. The previous inspection had resulted in a Requires Improvement overall rating, so some improvement in safe practice had been made.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good safe rating is reassuring, but without specific evidence it is hard to know what underpins it. Good Practice research consistently identifies night staffing as the point where safety most often slips in smaller homes. For a 15-bed home caring for people with dementia, the question of how many permanent, trained staff are on duty overnight matters enormously. Agency reliance is another risk factor: staff who do not know your parent cannot respond to subtle changes in behaviour or health. The published findings do not answer either of these questions, so you will need to ask them directly.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review found that inconsistent staffing, particularly reliance on agency staff who do not know individual residents, is one of the strongest predictors of avoidable harm in care homes.","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 permanent staff versus agency, and ask specifically how many carers are on duty between 10pm and 7am."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Good

  {"found":"The effective domain was rated Good at the March 2021 inspection. This domain covers training, care planning, healthcare access, nutrition, and how well the home understands and meets individual needs. No specific examples of dementia training content, care plan detail, GP access arrangements, or food quality are recorded in the published summary. The home lists dementia as a specialism, which means inspectors would have assessed whether staff had appropriate knowledge and whether care plans reflected individual needs. Beyond the rating itself, no supporting detail is available.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Care plans should work as living documents that are regularly updated as your parent's needs change. Good Practice evidence from 61 studies identifies family involvement in care planning as one of the most important markers of genuinely person-centred care, yet this is one of the things most commonly missing from smaller homes. A Good effective rating suggests the basics were in place, but you cannot tell from the published findings whether care plans included your parent's personal history, preferences, and communication needs, or whether they were reviewed with family input. Food quality is often a reliable signal of how much thought goes into individual care: ask to see the menu and visit at lunchtime if you can.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review identified that dementia-specific training focused on non-verbal communication and behavioural understanding, rather than generic care training, produced measurably better outcomes for residents.","watch_out":"Ask the manager what specific dementia training staff have completed, when it was last updated, and whether it covers how to interpret distress or changed behaviour in someone who cannot use words to communicate."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Good

  {"found":"The caring domain was rated Good at the March 2021 inspection. This domain covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, privacy, and whether residents are treated as individuals. No direct inspector observations about how staff speak to or interact with residents are recorded in the published summary. No resident or family quotes appear in the available findings. A Good caring rating means inspectors did not find significant concern, but it does not tell you whether staff know residents by their preferred names, whether interactions feel unhurried, or how staff respond when someone is distressed.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single most important theme in our review data, mentioned in 57.3% of all positive family reviews across more than 5,400 UK care homes. Compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. These are the things families notice first and remember most. The inspection rating suggests no failure was found, but a Good rating with no supporting detail is not the same as strong, specific evidence of warm and respectful care. Observe this yourself on a visit: watch how staff address residents in corridors, whether they knock before entering rooms, and whether interactions feel genuine rather than transactional.","evidence_base":"Good Practice research highlights that for people with advanced dementia, non-verbal communication, including tone of voice, eye contact, and unhurried physical contact, matters as much as what is said. Staff who know a resident's personal history are better placed to provide comfort and maintain dignity.","watch_out":"When you visit, spend time in a communal area without prompting staff. Notice whether they address residents by name, whether they crouch to eye level when speaking to someone seated, and whether anyone appears to be left waiting or unacknowledged."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Good

  {"found":"The responsive domain was rated Good at the March 2021 inspection. This domain covers activities, individual engagement, whether care reflects personal preferences and history, and end-of-life planning. No detail about activity programmes, one-to-one engagement, or end-of-life arrangements is recorded in the published summary. For a home specialising in dementia care, meaningful daily activity and individual engagement are central to wellbeing, not optional extras. The published findings give no indication of what a typical day looks like for the people who live there.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness is cited in 27.1% of positive family reviews, and activities and engagement feature in 21.4%. Good Practice evidence is clear that for people with dementia, group activities alone are not enough: one-to-one engagement, including simple tasks like folding, watering plants, or looking through photographs, can significantly reduce distress and support a sense of purpose. The inspection rating suggests responsiveness was broadly in place, but you need to find out what this looks like in practice, particularly for residents who cannot join group sessions. Ask to see the activity log for the past month, not the planned timetable.","evidence_base":"The rapid evidence review found that Montessori-based and everyday task approaches to activity, where residents engage in familiar, meaningful tasks rather than passive entertainment, produced the strongest outcomes for people with dementia, including reduced agitation and improved mood.","watch_out":"Ask specifically what happens for a resident who cannot get out of bed or who finds group settings distressing. Request to see the activity record for a specific resident (anonymised if needed) to see whether one-to-one engagement is actually happening, not just planned."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Requires improvement

  {"found":"The well-led domain was rated Requires Improvement at the March 2021 inspection. This is the one area where the home did not meet the Good standard. Well-led covers management visibility, staff culture, governance systems, how the home learns from incidents, and whether leadership creates an environment where staff can raise concerns. The registered manager is Mr Kieron Mark Featherstone, who is also the nominated individual for the provider. No detail about what specifically caused the Requires Improvement rating, or what action was taken in response, is available in the published summary. The last inspection is now over four years old.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management and leadership quality accounts for 23.4% of positive family satisfaction in our review data. Good Practice research consistently finds that leadership stability and a culture where staff feel supported and able to speak up are among the strongest predictors of care quality over time. A Requires Improvement in well-led at the most recent inspection is the single most important thing to probe on a visit. It does not mean the home is unsafe, but it does mean that governance, accountability, and learning from incidents were not fully functioning in March 2021. The review in July 2023 found no evidence requiring reassessment, but that review was based on data monitoring rather than a new on-site inspection.","evidence_base":"The Leeds Beckett rapid evidence review found that leadership stability and a bottom-up culture, where frontline staff feel empowered to raise concerns and suggest improvements, are stronger predictors of sustained care quality than any single process or policy.","watch_out":"Ask the manager directly: what did the Requires Improvement in well-led relate to, what specific changes were made in response, and how does the home now record and act on incidents, complaints, and near-misses? A confident, specific answer is a positive sign. A vague one is not."}

  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 over 65 with dementia, mental health conditions and physical disabilities.. Gaps or open questions remain on While dementia care is one of their specialisms, the home takes a flexible approach to supporting residents with different needs. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.