Enter and view: The Lodge Care Home

Healthwatch York undertook an announced enter and view visit to the Lodge Care Home on 30 September 2025. They spoke to 46 people.

Positive findings

• The staff were all extremely friendly and interacted very well with residents. They knew residents’ names and the activities staff were particularly good, engaging residents in conversation, personalised activities and impromptu song!
• The staff were very respectful. They all wore name badges and had different coloured tabards to identify different staff roles.
• There is a beautiful, homely feel with magnificent staircase and dome feature. Pictures of resident activities are displayed with weekly activities programme.
• There seemed to be a lot of activities happening and the activities coordinators tailored activities to individuals, including one-to-one sessions in a resident’s room where appropriate.
• While the building is not particularly easy to navigate, there are good signs (words and pictures) on the bathroom and toilet doors and the residents’ rooms have numbers on the doors and a photo and name of the person next to the door so they are easy to identify.
• All the residents looked clean and smart and there were positive comments about laundry, which is done on site.
• There are weekly GP visits and there is a positive relationship between The Lodge and the local GP surgery. There are also regular visits from hairdressers, chiropodists and even dentists to provide check-ups.

Areas where improvements could be made

• Make sure that external litter bins, particularly clinical waste bins, are regularly emptied. When we visited waste was overflowing, including clinical waste.
• Continue to encourage residents to move from the seats in the lounge if possible (we recognise that as an adapted building, there is limited room internally for residents to move round).
• The doors and frames of residents’ rooms were the same colour. It would be good to introduce some colour contrast when next decorating.
• When decorating, make sure the rail on the walls is a different colour to the paint on the walls so it stands out and is easy to see.
• Where possible make sure the numbers on the residents’ room doors stand out.