Enter & View Report: Eastbury House Care Home
This visit was part of our ongoing work to support quality monitoring of residential care homes in Dorset. Eastbury House was made aware that there would be a visit by Healthwatch on 9 June 2026, so they were expecting us.
Key findings
- Good care home: This is a good, person-centred care home where residents are generally happy and treated kindly.
- Strong team: The low level of staff turnover and flexible work patterns, indicate that it is a happy place to work with good communication. Staff have access to a wide range of training. Opportunities should continue for all staff to have networking experiences to gain a wide range of perspectives.
- Old building: Although the building appears to be generally in a good state of repair, the environment was not ideal as much of the home comprises of a large old house. There are three staircases and numerous steps of different heights.
- Signage: We felt that there was a lack of signage.
- Dementia friendly: There was limited colour contrast between doors and flooring, and between light switches and walls, which may affect the visibility of these features for people living with dementia. Some of the wall bars were slippery, maybe due to the varnish used.
- Seating: Some of the sofas in the lounge were very low and difficult to get out of.
Recommendations
We would like Eastbury House Care Home to consider the following recommendations for improvement based on our observations and findings from the visit.
- Consider use of additional ramps to minimise steps at different levels and ensure that residents make more use of stair lifts in a safe way.
- Review seating in common area. Consider use of adaptations such as pressure cushions, if there is an identified risk of pressure areas developing due to immobility, low weight or other health issues.
- Review use of contrasting colours in communal areas to ensure it is ‘dementia friendly’. Check wall handles aren’t slippery.
- Staff to have a work phone or install the WhatsApp function on the tablets rather than use personal phones.
- Continue to provide residents with opportunities for outside trips and support to use the garden if they wish to.
- Endeavour to ensure that there is a coordinated approach and liaison with follow-up medical appointments and that families are notified of appointments in good time.
- More directional signage might be helpful for residents and visitors, (such as directional pointers for room numbers,) and clear signage showing the name of the service and the room, including signs with words and pictures, and place signs at eye level.
The care home manager has responded in full to the recommendations. See the full report.
Read our report
If you would like this report in a different format, email enquiries@healthwatchdorset.co.uk or call 0300 111 0102.
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Enter and View: Eastbury House Care Home, Sherborne
