Respite care in Romford and Collier Row: short stays at Ashbrook Nursing Home for carers who need a break

What respite at Ashbrook is

Ashbrook is purpose-built, with 70 single en-suite rooms. A respite stay means one of those rooms for an agreed period, subject to assessment and availability, with nursing care and the same daily life as long-term residents: the café-style bakery and bistro, the sensory room, the indoor garden room and the patio and gazebo outside.

It can help in three situations. A carer needs a break, a holiday or their own operation. Someone leaving Queen's Hospital is not quite ready to be alone. Or a family wants a trial period to see how a parent settles before deciding anything.

Why respite in a nursing home rather than a sitting service

Visiting care has real uses, but it may not cover injected insulin, a catheter or stoma, daily wound dressings or pressure sore prevention, and it rarely helps at three in the morning when dementia has someone up and walking. Ashbrook has registered nurses on duty 24 hours and a dementia-trained team, and the assessment checks that we can meet the person's needs.

What a stay includes

• A single en-suite room, with a nurse call system and space for photographs and a radio.
• Nursing care at all hours, alongside care staff and a dementia-trained team.
• Meals through the day, plus the café-style bakery and bistro. Medical and cultural diets are agreed at the assessment.
• The activities programme, the sensory room, the indoor garden room, and the patio and gazebo in better weather.
• Medication given by nurses from the person's current prescription. Ask how the GP will be involved during the stay.
• Relatives and friends can come to see them. Ask about times when you book.

Booking a stay

Call 01708 736588 with your dates, or send them through the tour request form. An assessment comes before any booking, so keep the medication list, GP details and hospital letters close by. Ask for the room, the dates and the weekly fee to be confirmed first. Later, pack medication, labelled clothes, glasses and hearing aids.

If a carer suddenly goes into hospital or a family crisis arrives, ring and tell us. With 70 rooms there may be one free, but that depends on the day, and the assessment still has to happen.

Help from Havering with the cost

Most stays are paid for privately. Havering offers two possible routes to help. The person you care for can ask the London Borough of Havering for a needs assessment under the Care Act 2014, and if needs are eligible, respite can be arranged through the council after a financial assessment using the 2026/27 limits of £23,250 and £14,250. Separately, you can ask for a carer's assessment for yourself, which considers your own wellbeing and is open to you regardless of the other person's money. Replacement care may still attract a charge. Families in Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham or Essex go to their own council.

Where a registered nurse is assessed as necessary, the NHS contributes through NHS-funded nursing care: £267.68 a week in 2026/27, pro rata for part weeks, paid to Ashbrook and taken off the fee.

Day care first, respite later

Starting with day care can make a later stay easier. The person spends the day at Ashbrook, has lunch and company, perhaps sits in the indoor garden room, and goes home in the evening.

After the stay

Once the dates are up, the person goes home. Ask the nurse on duty how the stay went, what they ate, how they slept, whether anything changed, and what the GP should be told. Moving to Ashbrook for good would be a separate decision, in your own time.

Bringing the person's routine with them

A respite stay tends to go better when daily habits travel with the person. Tell us at the assessment what time they get up and go to bed, what they have for breakfast, how they take their tea, and which radio stations or programmes they follow. A favourite blanket, a photograph by the bed and their own radio can help too.

Where we are

Ashbrook Nursing Home is at 217 to 219 Chase Cross Road, Collier Row, Romford RM5 3XS, about two miles north of Romford station on the Elizabeth line, with the A12, the A127 and junction 28 of the M25 all nearby. It is within reach of carers in Romford, Harold Hill, Gidea Park, Chadwell Heath and Havering-atte-Bower.