- Care home
The Firs Residential Care Home
We issued an urgent Notice of Decision to The Firs Residential Care Home Limited to suspend the service following significant concerns for people’s safety and breaches of the regulations related to safe care and treatment, person centred care, Meeting nutritional and hydration needs, staffing, equipment and premises and good governance at The Firs Residential Care Home
Assessment report published 22 May 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 1 and 2 April 2025. The Firs Residential Care Home is a care home providing support to people over the age of 18 including those living with dementia and physical disabilities. At the time of the assessment, the service was supporting 11 people with their personal care needs.
The Firs Residential Care Home was last rated requires improvement (published 5 February 2022). This assessment was undertaken to review whistleblowing concerns received about the care and treatment of people. The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation to governance. Improvements were not found at this assessment, and the provider remained in breach of this regulation.We also found the provider was in breach of the legal regulations relating to person-centred care, an unsafe environment, not meeting nutritional and hydration needs and staffing.
This service is being placed in 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 use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide. 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.
People's experience of this service
Overall we received positive feedback from people living at the home who agreed care staff were compassionate and supportive. However, we consistently received concerns from relatives about the management team. Relatives told us there was little oversight and the registered manager appeared absent from the service for large periods of time.Some relatives said they felt staff lacked guidance and support because of this. Relatives told us whilst their complaints were acknowledged actions were not taken and their concerns continued.