23 February 2021

Finding Anya Court Care Home

Relative, David shares his story of finding the perfect care home for his dad during the pandemic.

In August 2020 my 95-year-old father was taken into hospital after having a fall at night. Until that time he had been living completely independently and without any assistance. He remained in hospital for some time and was then transferred to another hospital for rehabilitation.

During this time, he lost confidence and felt unable to return home to continue living independently. He was not keen for strangers to come into his home several times a day and therefore took the decision to move into residential care. Consequently, my siblings and I, who are scattered across the country, had to find a suitable care home, with very little time, in the middle of a global pandemic and having to contend with visiting rules constantly changing.

As part of our quest, we initially carried out a desk-based review to reduce the number of potential homes down to a reasonable level. This took into account such factors as:

• CQC ratings for the last 3 years, current year and any failings
• Location of the home, immediate surroundings, transport links, NHS local hospital performance, and team joining criteria for any care home vacancies

Once we had reduced the list to a more manageable level, (from an initial review of over 45 care homes, down to 7) we needed to visit each care home as well as look at the detail around the contractual terms, ownership of the business/owners, financial performance/commitment, Companies House searches on owners and references from residents. This was obviously extremely difficult given the current situation along with the geographic distribution of the locations. Nevertheless, we managed to visit each home, whether physically of virtually and gradually we whittled the number down. Our experiences varied considerably, however, one care home consistently outperformed all the others, based upon our criteria – Anya Court in Rugby.

From our initial contact with Anya Court, through numerous meetings and calls, we were always greeted with courtesy as well as outstanding professionalism, at all levels of the organisation. It was easy to see how well the team worked together and genuinely cared, not just about the residents, but each other as well. Nothing was too much trouble, whether it be a request from the family or more importantly, my father. I’m pleased to say that this is something that has continued to this day (six months after my father moved in) and I believe is encapsulated so well in Hallmark’s motto – “Above all, we care.”

To the casual observer Hallmark may look as though it is just another faceless organisation, however, scratch the surface and you will see that this is a family-run provider of multi-award-winning care homes. I would also suggest any prospective resident and/or their family also view the video made by the Care Home Show with Avnish Goyal from Hallmark. Whilst the interview is just over a year old now, it provides an insightful view into the whole ethos and vision of Hallmark. This video, along with all the other information we gleaned over the period, gave us the confidence that my father would be happy at Anya Court.

Finally, I will provide a quote from my father as the last word. When asked how he would summarise his experience of Anya Court, he said he was “Absolutely delighted with everything in the home. All the team are very caring, and the food is superb”, believe me when I say this is high praise indeed!

Click here to find your nearest Hallmark care home.