Woodside Grange Care Home

What families say

The home offers structured daily activities including exercise sessions and spiritual workshops, with informal social engagement throughout the day. Some families report their relatives settled well into routines, particularly those in early-stage dementia who adapted quickly to the environment. Student healthcare professionals visiting the home have noted friendly, approachable staff who support learning opportunities.

Based on 28 Google reviews · 0 reviews on carehome.co.uk · most recent 2026-04-10

The eight family priority themes

• Staff warmth72
• Compassion & dignity72
• Cleanliness72
• Activities & engagement68
• Food quality68
• Healthcare70
• Management & leadership75
• Resident happiness70

What inspectors found

Inspected 2021-01-27 · Report published 2021-01-27 · Inspected 11 times in the last three years

• Is this home safe?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Safe domain was rated Good at the July 2024 assessment. This indicates inspectors found that medicines were managed appropriately, risks to residents were identified and acted on, and staffing was considered sufficient. For a 121-bed home registered for dementia and nursing care, this covers a wide range of safety requirements. The published summary does not include specific detail about staffing ratios, falls management, or infection control observations.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"A Good rating under Safe is reassuring, but it is worth understanding what it means in practice for your parent. For a large, mixed-needs home like this one, Good Practice evidence consistently shows that night staffing is the point where safety most often slips; inspectors do not always scrutinise overnight rotas in the depth families need. The absence of specific detail in this report means you cannot yet tell whether the staffing felt adequate on a typical Tuesday night as well as a Tuesday inspection morning. Agency staff usage is another variable worth checking: research shows that high agency reliance disrupts the consistency of care that people with dementia depend on.","evidence_base":"The IFF Research and Leeds Beckett University rapid evidence review (2026) found that safety incidents, including falls and medication errors, are more likely to occur on night shifts and in homes with high agency staff turnover, underscoring the importance of asking specifically about overnight staffing numbers.","watch_out":"Ask the manager to show you the actual staffing rota for the past two weeks, not a template. Count how many permanent staff names appear on night shifts compared with agency names, and ask what the minimum staffing level is overnight on the dementia unit specifically."}

  Verified by inspectorMentioned, not assessed

• Is the care effective?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Effective domain was rated Good at the July 2024 assessment. This suggests that care plans were in place and considered fit for purpose, staff training met the required standard, and residents had access to healthcare professionals including GPs. The home supports a wide specialism range, including dementia and nursing care, which means effective practice covers complex clinical needs. No specific examples of care planning, training content, or healthcare access arrangements are included in the published findings.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Effectiveness in a dementia care context means your parent's care plan should be a living document, updated when their needs change and informed by people who know them well, including you. Our family review data identifies dementia-specific care as a key concern in 12.7% of positive reviews, with families consistently noting the difference between a home that follows a generic routine and one that truly knows the individual. The Good rating here suggests the home reached the required standard, but the absence of specific examples means you will need to probe what that looks like in practice for your parent. Ask to read a sample care plan structure and ask how often it is formally reviewed with family input.","evidence_base":"Good Practice evidence from 61 studies (IFF Research, 2026) identifies care plans as a central marker of quality: homes where plans are reviewed at least monthly and families are actively involved in updates consistently produce better outcomes for people with dementia.","watch_out":"Ask the manager how often care plans are reviewed, whether families are routinely invited to those reviews, and how quickly the plan would be updated if your parent's condition changed overnight. A confident, specific answer is a good sign; a vague one is worth following up."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is this home caring?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Caring domain was rated Good at the July 2024 assessment. This rating covers staff warmth, dignity, respect, independence, and responsiveness to individual needs. For inspectors to award Good, they would have seen broadly positive interactions between staff and residents. The published summary does not include direct observations of staff behaviour, resident reactions, or family testimony, which limits how much specific reassurance this report can offer.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Staff warmth is the single biggest driver of family satisfaction in our review data, mentioned by name in 57.3% of positive reviews, and compassion and dignity follow closely at 55.2%. What families describe in positive reviews are small, observable moments: staff using a parent's preferred name without being reminded, taking time to explain what is happening during personal care, or sitting down rather than standing while talking. A Good rating in Caring suggests these standards were present when inspectors visited, but the way to verify it for yourself is to observe staff interactions during a visit, ideally at a time you have not pre-announced. Notice whether staff make eye contact, move without hurry, and speak to your parent directly rather than about them.","evidence_base":"Good Practice research consistently finds that non-verbal communication, including pace, eye contact, and physical proximity, is as important as verbal interaction for people with dementia, and that person-centred care requires genuine knowledge of the individual rather than adherence to a checklist.","watch_out":"During your visit, notice whether staff address your parent (or other residents you observe) by their preferred name without prompting, and watch whether they pause and make eye contact before beginning any task. These behaviours are observable within minutes and are reliable indicators of the everyday culture of the home."}

  Verified by inspectorResident testimony recorded

• Is the home responsive?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Responsive domain was rated Good at the July 2024 assessment. This covers activities, engagement, individuality, complaint handling, and end-of-life care. For a 121-bed home supporting people with a wide range of needs, including advanced dementia and physical disabilities, responsiveness requires both group and individual approaches to engagement. The published summary does not include detail about the activity programme, one-to-one engagement, complaint volumes, or end-of-life planning.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Resident happiness is cited as a key theme in 27.1% of positive family reviews, and activities and engagement feature in 21.4%. What families in our data describe is the difference between a noticeable activity programme on a board and actual, meaningful engagement for their parent throughout the day. Good Practice evidence is clear that group activities alone are insufficient for people with moderate to advanced dementia; tailored one-to-one engagement, including familiar household tasks, sensory activities, or simply sitting together with a familiar face, matters just as much. A Good rating here is encouraging, but the published report does not confirm whether the home provides this kind of individual engagement in practice.","evidence_base":"The 2026 IFF Research evidence review found that Montessori-based and individually tailored activity approaches, including everyday tasks such as folding, sorting, and gardening, significantly improve wellbeing and reduce distress in people with dementia compared with group-only programme models.","watch_out":"Ask the activities coordinator to describe what a typical day looks like for a resident who cannot join group sessions, perhaps because of advanced dementia or physical limitations. If the answer is specific and immediate, that is a positive sign; if it defaults to group activity descriptions, ask again what happens for your parent between sessions."}

  Verified by inspector

• Is the home well-led?

  Not yet rated

  {"found":"The Well-led domain was rated Good at the July 2024 assessment. The home is run by St. Martin's Care Limited, with Mrs Barbara Parker as Registered Manager and Mrs Hayley Louise Robertshaw as Nominated Individual. A named, accountable manager is in place. The improvement from a previous Requires Improvement rating to Good across all domains is a meaningful indicator that leadership has driven genuine change. The published summary does not include detail about staff culture, governance systems, or how the manager is experienced day-to-day by staff and residents.","quotes":[],"family_meaning":"Management quality accounts for 23.4% of what drives positive family reviews, and what families describe is a manager who knows residents by name, is visible on the floor, and responds quickly when families raise concerns. The improvement trajectory here, from Requires Improvement to Good, is genuinely encouraging: it suggests the registered manager has identified problems and addressed them, which is the most reliable indicator of a home moving in the right direction. Good Practice research consistently finds that leadership stability predicts quality trajectory; a manager who has been in post through an improvement cycle and remains in post is a positive sign. Ask how long Mrs Parker has been in the role and how accessible she is to families.","evidence_base":"Good Practice evidence from the 2026 Leeds Beckett University review found that homes with stable, empowering leadership, where staff feel able to raise concerns without fear, consistently sustain quality improvements over time, whereas homes where managers change frequently tend to revert to earlier patterns.","watch_out":"Ask how long the current Registered Manager has been in post, whether the same manager led the improvement from Requires Improvement to Good, and how families would typically contact her if they had a concern. A manager who can be reached directly and responds promptly is a concrete signal of the culture families value most."}

  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 caters for adults both under and over 65 with a range of conditions including dementia, learning disabilities, mental health conditions and physical disabilities. This breadth of expertise means they work with residents who have complex or multiple care needs.. Gaps or open questions remain on For those considering dementia care, some families report their relatives adapted well to life at Woodside Grange without the distress of wanting to return home. The home provides structured activities designed to engage residents with varying cognitive abilities. — areas worth probing directly during a visit.