- Care home
Pathfinders Specialist and Complex Care
Assessment report published 9 September 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 4-8 August 2025. Pathfinders Neurological Care Centre is a care home providing personal and nursing care, supporting to people over the age of 18, including those living with physical disabilities and mental health conditions. At the time of the assessment, the service was supporting 58 people with their personal care needs.
Pathfinders Neurological Care Centre was last rated good, (published 25 November 2020).
We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.
We found breaches of the legal regulation in relation to safe care and treatment, person centred care, staffing, infection prevention and control (IPC) medicines management and governance which included consent to care and treatment. Care plans lacked specific detail and guidance for staff about people’s individual health conditions and the level of support they needed. Incidents and accidents were not always recorded and followed up to ensure risks to people were mitigated. Medicines were not always managed or stored safely. IPC within the home was not to a safe and consistent level, people’s rooms needed deep cleaning and equipment such as wheelchairs were visibly dirty.
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
People and relatives we spoke with consistently told us they were not routinely included in their care planning and reviews. People raised concerns about staffing levels and staffs’ level of training and knowledge. While most people told us they did not feel unsafe, some people said they experienced extended wait times for support when pressing their call bell and this was more prevalent in the evenings and at weekends. Some people told us that they struggled to get support to go out into the community because of staffing levels.
Despite the staffing levels concerns most people said staff treated them with kindness and compassion. We observed staff supporting people with person centred care and taking time to socialise and engage with people in communal areas. We saw people in communal areas being offered choice and staff supporting people to make decisions if needed.