Archived: Brenan House Residential Home

Updated 4 August 2025

Date of assessment: 11 August to 20 August 2025. Brenan House is a residential care home supporting older people some who may be living with dementia, there were 12 people living at the service. We completed this assessment to follow up on previous enforcement action.

The quality of the service had deteriorated since our last inspection. We found significant shortfalls, with 4 breaches of regulation relating to safe care, governance of the service, staffing, recruitment. We found 4 breaches of registration regulations relating to not submitting notifications including deaths, notification of DoLs, general notifications and not meeting a condition on their registration. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.

The oversight of the service was poor; there was no effective system to monitor the quality of the service. The provider had failed to make sure the building met fire safety regulations. There were not enough staff to meet people’s needs including evacuation from the building. Accidents and incidents had not been analysed to identify patterns and trends. The provider had not acted to reduce the risk of them happening again. Potential risks to people’s health and welfare had not always been assessed and there was limited guidance for staff to mitigate risk. Medicines were not managed safely. Staff had not received supervision and training appropriate to their role; the registered manager did not have up to date training. Staff had not been recruited safely; references had not been sought from previous employers.

This service is being placed into special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we user our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a time frame within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.

Updated 4 August 2025

People and relatives told us they were happy with the service. However, people did not have access to meaningful activities. People spent their time in their rooms or the communal lounge watching television. People were supported in a task orientated way, staff were allocated tasks and did not have time to spend with people. Staff did not have guidance to reduce risks to people and had not been given the appropriate training, placing people at risk.People were referred to the GP and district nurse when required and staff followed the guidance given.