Welcome to
Gainsborough Care Home
53 Ulwell Road, Swanage BH19 1LQ
New care enquiries: 01929 422 500
All other calls: 01929 422 500
Gainsborough Care Home, Swanage, Dorset
Gainsborough Care Home offers a home for life in Swanage, providing affordable residential, respite and dementia care. You’ll find us in a picturesque Purbeck seaside town, just a stone’s throw from Dorset’s stunning Jurassic Coast.
We respect all our residents – their dignity, their space, and their right to make personal choices in care. Each resident is an individual, and we offer different activities and menu options so every person feels happy, stimulated and cared-for.
As well as caring for our residents we care about their families too. Our door is always open for a chat, and family and friends are welcome to visit at any time. We have a kitchenette, where visitors can help themselves to tea and coffee.
About our home
After being completely refurbished to a very high standard Gainsborough is fully equipped to deal with a range of needs and requirements.
Because we want Gainsborough to feel like a ‘home-from-home’, we don’t furnish our communal rooms in a clinical way.
Our three comfortable lounges and our dining room mean there is plenty of space for group activities, or somewhere to find a quieter spot.
Residents and visitors are welcome to use the free Gainsborough wi-fi. All our care homes have a tablet for residents to use – Skype calls work really well – and for families to use when they visit.
Visitors often bring in their own devices and use our wi-fi to show loved ones videos and photos, and to play games. And our wi-fi has proved very popular with the children of visiting families!
All of the residents, particularly those with dementia, are encouraged to add their personal touches to their room, such as photographs, to give their space a homely feel.
The bedrooms at Gainsborough
There are 48 bedrooms across the ground floor and the first floor. Our first floor is fully accessible, by stairs or a lift.
All our rooms have en-suites or a washbasin in the room. Some rooms have en-suite wet rooms. The rooms without en-suites have accessible bathrooms or wet rooms nearby.
We encourage our residents to personalise their rooms with their own photos and furniture. Personal possessions help residents feel Gainsborough is a home-from-home, and provide extra stimulation and time for reminiscence.
One of our residents even brought her budgie with her when she moved in. Each bedroom’s front door is a different colour and style, which makes it more recognisable.
The garden at Gainsborough
We have a secure and spacious accessible garden. Residents can join in outdoor activities, such as skittles, or simply enjoy the fresh sea air.
There’s a pond and a fountain, and an area where residents can plant their own bulbs and flowers.
And in the summer we’ll have chairs, tables and parasols out.
Staff training
All our staff go on an intensive three-day training course before starting at Gainsborough.
Being part of the Agincare family means there are great career progression opportunities. We actively encourage our staff to widen their care experience and learn new skills.
We use an online care planning tool to give our staff immediate real-time access to residents’ likes, dislikes and care information on a handset.
Our care team can easily keep track of a resident’s day, including medication, activities, hydration and how much they’ve eaten etc.
Social activities
Our activities co-ordinator will make sure there’s something for you to enjoy at Gainsborough, if you want to take part in our activities.
Our residents love visits from animal therapy teams. We’ve welcomed birds of prey, alpacas, PAT dogs and even insects and reptiles into Gainsborough.
Musical activities play a big part here, and our entertainers make the most of the lovely piano in our dining room. Music from the 1940s is always a big hit with our residents, and at Christmas we love to welcome the local school choir in to lead us in some of our favourite carols.
Other activities include:
- Arts and crafts
- Manicures and beauty treatments
- Hair-dressing
- Singalongs
- Memory boxes
We also get out and about as much as we can in our minibus, which was kindly donated by a resident and his family.
Trips to Weymouth, and fish and chips or ice creams on the Esplanade, are a big favourite! We also love visits to nearby Farmer Palmer’s and the Swanage Railway.
Food and nutrition
Good, wholesome home-cooked food is essential at a care home. Our chefs at Gainsborough cook with locally-sourced ingredients as much as possible. Puddings and cakes are a specialty!
Our chefs always ask for feedback from our residents when they’re designing our menus.
One of the ways they do this is at the quarterly residents’ forums. Here residents can suggest what they’d like to see more (or less) of on the menu.
We serve three main meals a day and mealtimes are really important. Our snack trolley also offers a little something extra to eat mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
We encourage our residents to eat together in our lovely dining room. There are so many social and nutritional benefits to eating together. Simply being in the company of others can go a long way to helping people feel like eating.
However, people can choose to eat their meals in private too, if they prefer.
We have picture and written menus, but we always re-offer before serving, to check our residents haven’t changed their minds about what they’d like to eat.
Read more about food and nutrition in our care homes.
Our Staff
I have been part of the Gainsborough team since 2017 and I have grown with the home. I have been the home’s Deputy Manager for the past 12 months, and am now the Acting Manager. The home has achieved a ‘GOOD’ CQC rating, and we will all work hard as a team to build on this moving forward. The atmosphere in the home is second to none, and it’s really lovely to see the team and the residents so happy. We have amazing staff that care for our incredible residents, and I’m really proud to be part of the Gainsborough team.
Dawn Hand (Acting Manager)
Registered Manager
Tour our Swanage care home
Features
- Secure landscaped gardens & patio
- Many rooms overlooking our gardens
- Interesting and stimulating activities
- Delicious home-cooked meals
- Disabled access
- Visitors always welcome
Responding to Gainsborough’s ‘Good’ CQC report (October 2021), the care home manager said:
We are all delighted that the Care Quality Commission has rated Gainsborough Care Home as Good.
I’m very proud of the team, the Good rating is a testament to their hard work and the incredible community that we, our residents and their loved ones have built together at Gainsborough Care Home.
I’m particularly pleased with the positive comments from residents and their families about how they feel about our home, because supporting them with high quality care is ultimately what we are here for.
Where is the care home located in Swanage?
We’re within walking distance from the beach and the shops. But if you prefer to take the bus into Swanage town centre with its library, theatre, places to eat, and the impressive Swanage Railway, we’re handily placed on the bus route.
You can also take the Number 40 in the other direction and go all the way to Poole, or even Bournemouth.
How are you keeping safe during Covid?
We are doing everything in our power to keep residents and staff safe during Covid.
The Care Quality Commission completed an assessment of how we are managing the impact of Covid. The Emergency Support Framework (ESF) Summary Record includes a positive response to every question asked and an equally positive overall summary.
Are you able to accept care home visits?
Yes, we are delighted to be able to welcome visitors back into our home. Our care home visiting policy is based on a strict protocol and risk assessment that takes into account the individual circumstances of each home.
Types of care we provide
