A CARE home provider which has two homes in Winchester and others in Hampshire has been rated top on a national review site.

Colten Care, which owns and runs seven Hampshire nursing and residential homes, including the Winchester homes Abbotts Barton and dementia-specific St Catherines View was rated as the best in the UK among operators with more than three homes.

It is among nine groups nationally currently scoring 9.7 out of ten for carehome.co.uk - which calculates scores for care homes across Britain from both the number of reviews they receive and an average of the quality assessments people give.

Colten Care chief executive Mark Aitchison said: “Carehome.co.uk is genuinely independent and care home providers cannot influence a review score.

“To achieve such a high rating you have to be delivering a consistently high standard of care across all your homes. That’s what we strive to do while maintaining each home’s own unique character.

“We’re naturally delighted that people are clearly happy with the services we are providing and saying so online.

“Their feedback reflects the face-to-face comments we receive from residents and families every day at our homes.”

Altogether, Colten Care owns and runs 20 homes in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and Sussex.

A rare 10-out-of-10 individual rating was awarded to its newest home, the 72-bedroom Wellington Grange which opened in Chichester in April 2016.