Hurst Hall

My elderly father has now been at Hurst Hall for three months and I have been visiting him on a regular basis. Consistently he says that he is happy there and that the staff treat him with kindness and respect and help make him as comfortable as possible. The place has a cheery sociable atmosphere and seems to be well organised and professionally run. All the staff are angels. They deal with everyone's varying needs in a responsive, positive, caring way. My dad says they wash and shower him nicely and I've noticed that the residents are encouraged to get dressed and sit in one of the two lounges with the others. There are regular uplifting activities such as exercises, art and sometimes singers. My dad finds the food tasty and varied - I tried some and I agree! Hurst Hall seems clean and tidy with no unpleasant odours. It has an excellent layout, all on one floor in a square shape with a central courtyard garden. Can't be easy working there but they have managed to make it pleasant.

Awful! Throughout the time there, not much went right.All things said were just lip service, promises were never kept therefore had to chase up on everything a few times, leading to a bad experience. Found ants in the room (had to highlight this issue a couple of times). Physiotherapist recommendations verbally and emails were never followed through. Infuriating thing was told they did not have my mum’s medication, when in fact they did. Paid for a hair cut (chased up a few times) and got a pedicure instead. The inconsistency was priceless, especially when it came to visiting, things get made up on the spot, even from the same member of staff about entry or no entry. TV socket in the room was unplugged to restrict viewing on a couple of occasions.

This ‘care’ home left us distressed and gobsmacked at the lack of ethics and empathy they showed towards our family member that had been living in the home for the past 3 years.The home rang the resident’s daughter only once and left a message with no urgency to inform her that her mum had been sent to hospital. She was away on holiday so picked up the message when she returned home, a week later. No one else in the family was contacted, even though the home had 2 other numbers on file that they could have tried and have previously used to get in touch with us.They sent her to hospital with a “stroke” which medical staff confirmed wasn’t evident. They then proceeded to refuse her back to the home on the grounds that she wasn’t fit to go back and would need nursing care after an assessment from the manager and a carer, not a medical professional. The doctors and nurses at the hospital declared her well enough to return to the home after their medical assessment and receive the same level of residential care she had previously been given.The care team moved goal posts repeatedly, starting with the excuse she couldn’t feed herself. She then fed herself and they said she couldn’t sit up in a chair, she then sat up in a chair and they came up with various other invalid reasons with no supportive evidence. This went on for 5 weeks, another excuse after another. We had meetings with social care and they couldn’t understand why this home wasn’t letting a paying resident back from hospital. It was costing the NHS money for unnecessarily caring for a person who didn’t need to be in hospital whilst Hurst Hall was receiving the full money they would have got if the resident was still at the home.Frustrated and angry we decided we would send our family member to a CARE home that wanted her, she was quickly accepted and settled in the home in a couple of days. Homes like Hurst Hall should not be allowed to get away with cherry picking their residents so that they have an easier work load. A social care worker we spoke to told us Hurst Hall have 12 empty rooms. If you want your family to go to a care home that cares and doesn’t cherry pick residents, DO NOT SEND THEM HERE.

excellent friendly staff who make a difference to the lives of some of our more vulnerable older members of society