Albany House - Bognor Regis

Updated 9 July 2025

Date of assessment: 31 July 2025. Albany House - Bognor Regis is a care home providing accommodation and support for people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and/or autism. At the time of the assessment there were 12 people living at the home. We undertook this assessment in response to information of concern about the care provided. We found no evidence to support the concerns raised. We found breaches of regulations relating to the management of risk and medicines, person centred care and governance of the service.

Risks to people were not always identified, assessed and managed to prevent people from receiving unsafe care and treatment. Medicines were not always managed safely, and people’s care was not always planned and provided in a personalised way to meet their needs. Governance systems had failed to identify and rectify concerns found at this assessment.

An assessment has been undertaken of this service that is used by autistic people or people with a learning disability and was registered as a specialist service. We assessed the service against ‘Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture’ (RS, RC, RC) guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and/or autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. The provider had not given due consideration to RS, RC, RC and staff had not received all the training they needed to provide a specialist service to people with learning disabilities and /or autism. Following this assessment the provider reviewed their registration and is no longer registered as a specialist service for people with learning disabilities and /or autism.

We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.

Updated 9 July 2025

People and their relatives were consistently positive in their views about the care provided. Their comments included, “I give Albany House 10/10,” and “I think it’s probably the best care home in the country.”

People told us they felt safe living at Albany House. One person told us, “I feel very safe here, it’s a nice place and I have lots of friends here.” People described the staff as kind and caring. One person said, “All the staff look after us.” Another person said, “It’s a great place to live, the staff are so good.” A relative told us, “It’s very safe, because the staff are good and they control the home very well and are always on the lookout for any situation.” We observed people appeared comfortable in the presence of staff who knew them well.

People spoke highly about the quality of the food and said they enjoyed what was offered and their needs and preferences were catered for. One person said, “We always have nice meals,” another person said, “It’s good home cooking.” People told us they enjoyed activities that were offered, some people were looking forward to a joint holiday that was being arranged with support from staff.

People told us they were happy living at the service and spoke of it being warm and welcoming with a homely atmosphere. One person said, "I'm quite happy. The best things are the activities and the meals. It's a really nice house to live in.”

While the people we spoke with expressed that they were happy with the care, our assessment found elements of care did not meet the expected standard. There was a lack of understanding about RS, RC, RC. This meant the needs of people with learning disabilities and /or autism were not always considered in line with current best practice.