Pymouth care home is ‘best in country’

A PLYMOUTH care home has won the right to call itself the best in the country after scooping an award.

Tamar House, a 28-room facility based in Derriford, has beaten 2,700 others like it to win the best-care-home in England website award, regulated by the Quality Care Commission and supported by the National Skills Academy for Social Care.

The home, part of Abbeyfield – a national charity that aims to enhance the quality of life for older people in residential care – held a celebratory party last week and was presented with a trophy by the website’s founder, Debbie Harris.

She said: “Only houses that have an excellent rating as declared by the CQC are allowed to enter so the standard is very high.”

The best-care-home website is an online resource which provides a combination of audited reviews by the CQC and personal recommendations.

Tamar House, a three-star rated home, came first in the South West before being judged as the overall winner.

Rebecca Warbrick, Abbeyfield’s marketing and communications manager, said: “We are thrilled to hear that Tamar House has won the Best Care Home in England award. In addition to this great achievement, Abbeyfield houses won the regional awards for the North and South East of England, which illustrates the importance we place on pursuit of excellence across the board, especially as we were up against some very stiff competition.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tamar Houses’s care home manager, Mandy Vella and her team that work so hard and the residents and visitors and any others that took the time to vote.”

Over 2,000 votes letters and recommendations received from staff, residents, relatives of residents and visitors were used to decide the four regional winners and the overall winner.

Ms Harris added: “It was extremely difficult to wade thought all of the information on care homes to find on that I was sure would give my aunt the quality of care that I was happy with. The CQC system of star ratings helped me to make my decision, but trawling though inspection reports and star ratings was all very confusing and time consuming. I would have welcomed a resource where I could have a balance of the cold hard facts and the warmth of personal opinion to decide.”