- Care home
Frenchay House
Assessment report published 24 July 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 27 February to 17 March 2025
Frenchay House is a residential care home which provides personal care and accommodation for up to 30 people aged 65 years or older. Some people at the service were living with dementia, and others had been admitted for a short period to allow further assessment of their needs following a hospital stay. At the time of our inspection, 24 people were living at Frenchay House.
We carried out this assessment because concerns about the service had been brought to the attention of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We assessed all areas of the service. At the last inspection, the service was rated good. The rating had changed to requires improvement for this assessment.
During this assessment we found that people felt safe at the service overall, however improvements were needed in some areas. For example, relating to the environment and equipment as well as food and drink. We found the premises and equipment were not always well maintained or hygienic. However, we noted that changes and improvements were being made. People did not always have a positive dining experience and standards of food hygiene were not always achieved. Again, changes were being made to improve people’s experience, but these were not all in place or embedded at the time of our assessment.
There had been changes to the management and staff teams at Frenchay House in the last few months. Overall, people, relatives and staff had found the impact of the changes to be negative at the time of our assessment. For example, people, relatives and staff told us they felt there had been ineffective communication, inconsistencies and gaps in identifying quality shortfalls, and improvements taking a long time to be made. We found changes had been made and continued to be underway, but time was needed to embed the new systems and culture to ensure people were consistently receiving safe care. We found the management team to be open, honest and proactive about the actions they had already taken and how they intended to continue to improve.
People received support from compassionate staff, who wanted to work towards providing good quality care to the people who lived at Frenchay House.
We found breaches of the legal regulations in relation to the premises and environment and good governance. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
People's experience of this service
We spoke with people who used the service and their relatives about their experience of the care provided. Some people could not directly tell us about their experiences. We spent time at the service and used a structured observation tool to help us understand everyone’s experience and assess whether they received good care.
People and their relatives were largely positive about staff and told us staff were kind and caring. People and relatives knew there had been a lot of staff changes, and they hoped the staff team would now begin to stabilise again.
Some people were unhappy that repairs were needed around the home and felt these seemed to take a long time to complete. However, people and their relatives told us they would feel able to raise any concerns with staff or managers.
Several people and their relatives said they would like there to be more activities at Frenchay House. Visitors were welcome at the service at any time.
People gave mixed feedback about food at the service. They told us they did not have enough choices at mealtimes and most people were critical of the food provided. The provider was making changes to the way meals were prepared and served to people.