Enter and View Report: Abbeydale Nursing Home

In May 2025 we visited Abbeydale Nursing Home, a residential care home providing nursing and personal care to 36 people with 35 residents in place at the time of our visit. The home is located over two levels and is comprised of two buildings combined including a converted school that was built in the 19th century.

The home provides care for people requiring nursing and general residential care, “all categories”. The manager explained that they specialise in supporting people with dementia who have additional needs and behavioural challenges.

Summary

During our visit to Abbeydale Nursing Home we observed positive, caring and respectful interactions between staff and residents, and the residents we saw all looked well-cared for. The residents we spoke to were positive about both the home and staff and seemed to feel happy and safe.

The environment was clean, well maintained and all the areas that we saw looked well decorated and not overly clinical. Many areas felt like someone’s own home, and this is impressive considering the age of the building.

From the information the manager shared with us it was clear that Abbeydale Nursing Home has occasional concerns about staff provision, specifically the funding for residents who need 1-1 staff support. There also were examples of issues around health care, especially with hospital admissions and discharges.

We share feedback about healthcare with relevant organisations and commissioners where appropriate.

Recommendations

We make the following recommendations for Abbeydale Nursing Home.

• We felt that the activities room looked a nice space for providing a calmer and quieter area for residents. We felt the room could be a good space for providing a relaxing sensory area. Management advised that some residents struggle with activities that are too loud or overstimulating.
• We have seen other care homes such as Beechwood Specialist Services and Brooklands Care Home create and use these with positive feedback on their use given by staff.

Positives and good practice

We found during our visit to Abbeydale nursing home examples of positives and good practice which included but were not limited to:

• The levels of maintenance and decoration of an older building seemed very impressive. All of the areas that we saw were clean, fresh and well decorated to a high standard. It is clear a lot of thought and effort has gone into decorating and maintaining the home.
• Staff are long serving according to the manager who has also worked at the home for many years herself. Seeing the same faces is good for residents and allows staff to build up competencies and skills. We were impressed by the managers energy and how much she was willing to advocate on behalf of the residents and staff at the home.