Updated 11 June 2025
Date of Assessment: 26 June 2025 to 28 July 2025. Fairholme House is a care home providing personal care for up to 22 older adults. At the time of inspection there were 20 people living at the home, some of whom were living with dementia. The assessment was triggered by intelligence we received regarding concerns around safeguarding and staff training.
The provider was in breach of the legal regulation relating to person centred care, need for consent, safe care and treatment, and good governance.
Systems did not support a safe environment or prevent people from harm or abuse.
Records relating to people’s care needs and support, were not consistently completed or reviewed. Risks associated with people’s care were not always assessed. Referrals to professionals were not always made. People’s care and support was not always in line with their choices and preferences.
Medicines were regularly monitored, however administration of ‘when required’ medicines were not documented in people’s care notes. There was limited oversight of safeguardings in place, and we were not always notified about safeguarding alerts by the service.
The service was not always working in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Staff practices did not always promote or uphold people’s dignity, privacy, autonomy, or choice.
Staff had not completed necessary training to safely support people with their specific needs, staff lacked support from the management who in addition lacked understanding of their role and the principles of providing high-quality care.
Systems were not in place to monitor and improve outcomes, or quality of the service due to limited audits in place. There was a lack of oversight and monitoring of people’s care, therefore opportunities to learn lessons from incidents and take action were missed.
This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure 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. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to some of the concerns found at this assessment.