Archived: Alton House Care Home - Hayling Island

Updated 15 November 2024

Date of assessment: 28 November to 13 December 2024, site visits carried out on 28 November and 2 December 2024.

Alton House was a care home providing accommodation and personal care for up to 18 people who live with dementia. This assessment was prompted by information received about the care and safety of people living at the service.

We found 9 breaches of regulation in relation to person-centred care, dignity and respect, consent, the management of risk and medicines, infection control, safeguarding, premises, staffing, recruitment and good governance.

There were no clear management systems to check the quality and safety of the service, and the leadership was poor. People had not been protected from the risk of abuse and harm and had been treated with a lack of dignity and respect. People’s choices had not been followed and actions had not always been taken in people’s best interests. People did not always get their medicines as prescribed, and risks associated with their needs had not been safely managed. There was a lack of suitably skilled and competent staff and staff had not always been safely recruited. People lived in an environment that was not suitable for their needs and was not clean.

Following our inspection, we informed partners of our serious concerns who arranged support for the service. This included teams from the local authority and a care home quality improvement team. The care home quality improvement team provides expertise and clinical leadership to support care homes to maintain the health of the people who live there.

They found lessons were not being learnt and the provider continued to fail to implement measures to keep people safe. Subsequently, a decision was made by the local authority to move people on from living at Alton House. We served urgent enforcement action to restrict any new admissions to the care home. The provider then deregistered the service from CQC which meant they would not be operating.

Updated 15 November 2024

Some people who lived at Alton House were not able to verbally express their views about the service. Therefore, we spent time observing interactions between staff and people within the communal areas of the home. People spent most of their time sleeping or watching TV passively, appearing withdrawn and low in mood. People who spent all their time in their rooms were at risk of social isolation because staff did not have the time to spend with them. Two people were able to talk to us and both raised concerns to us. Neither liked living at the home. Relatives were mostly positive about the service and although some did raise some issues, these were not serious and did not reflect our findings in relation to people’s poor experiences.