During an assessment under our new approach
Date of assessment: 30 March to 20 April 2026.
Chalkwell Grange is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 48 people. People in care homes receive accommodation and personal care under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises, and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. The service provides support to older people some of whom are living with dementia. At the time of our inspection, there were 45 people living in the service. This inspection was unannounced.
The inspection was completed to follow up on the last inspection to see if improvements had been made and due to concerns received from the local authority. We found the service had not made improvements. At the last inspection the service was rated requires improvement. At this inspection the service has been rated Inadequate. We found continued breaches of regulations in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance. We also found an additional breach in relation to premises and equipment, staffing and notifications of incidents. However, the provider had taken appropriate action to ensure compliance with fit and proper persons employed, and we found this regulation was now being met.
People’s medicines were not being managed safely. The completed audits were ineffective and were not always accurate as audits did not identify the concerns we found at this inspection.
COSHH [Control of Substances Hazardous to Health] substances were not always being stored safely. This posed a risk of unsafe access, spillage, or exposure to hazardous substances for staff, people using the service, and visitors.
Staff were not receiving regular supervision. Staff did not feel valued and did not feel confident to raise concerns with management. Completed inductions lacked detail and were not being completed accurately.
The provider did not ensure risks associated with infection were escalated and managed in a timely way. Notifications of events were not always raised in a timely manner.
The registered manager’s governance arrangements did not always provide assurance the service was well led. Quality assurance systems were not robust. The audits completed were not consistently effective or accurate. Although issues had been identified, they had not identified all the shortfalls we found during our inspection.
The management of the service needed to be improved. There was no registered manager at the time of the inspection, and the service had not been consistently well managed. However, a new manager had now been appointed and was in post.
This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that 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.