Enter and View Report: Woolton Acre Retirement Living

In July 2025, we visited Woolton Acre Retirement Living, a care home for people with general residential needs. They have recently been approved by the CQC to also provide residential dementia care. Management advised that residents could go on to develop dementia after arriving without a diagnosis and that they want to be able to provide for residents across their journey without worrying about moving care homes.

At the time of our visit, they had capacity for 48 residents but currently have 21 residents in place as they are a relatively new care home and are slowly working up to capacity. They have works underway on the site to increase capacity to 70 residents with these new beds being related to their planned dementia service.

Summary

We observed during our short visit to Woolton Acre Retirement Living that it is care home that seems to be running well and is preparing to support more people as it expands upon the number of residents they support.

The building from what we saw is impressive both inside and out and the exterior has a feel of a well-maintained stately home. The massive grounds and the surrounding greenery are a welcome sight especially for those who enjoy nature and spending time outside.

The building was decorated well throughout with thoughtful touches to support residents such as the quiet room. There were pictures and ornaments throughout, and the home did not feel clinical. 

Woolton Acre on the day we visited was clean throughout and there was a calm atmosphere helped undoubtedly by the high ratio of staff to resident numbers with the lower occupancy.

Management and staff seemed to have built a rapport with the residents and the people we spoke to seemed content. Management has a plan in place for the increase in numbers of residents as well as the new dementia ward. We were impressed by the plans described for the dementia service that the manager was to justify with examples, evidence and references to health legislation.

Recommendations 

We make the following recommendations for Woolton Acre Retirement Living.

• Consider installing activities stations

Management spoke of plans to provide solo activities. We have seen examples of activity stations in care homes supplied with art supplies, crosswords and word searches that we felt were examples of good practice.

Positives and good practice

We found during our visit to Woolton Acre examples of positives and good practice which included but were not limited to: 

• The building and the grounds were a strength with plenty of space and greenery. Clearly effort has gone into maintenance and decoration to make an imposing building feel so homely.
• The staff we spoke to seemed happy in their jobs and described feeling supported. Some of these staff had many years’ experience in the care sector and felt that things were working well. We hope staff are supported as resident numbers increase.
• Senior staff seemed realistic about the challenges that the increase of resident numbers will bring. They have plans in place and were able to justify their reasons and what they will do to enhance the experience for residents.