- Care home
Forest Lodge Care Home
Assessment report published 28 August 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 27 May 2025 to 25 June 2025. Forest Lodge is a residential care home providing accommodation and support with personal and nursing care. It provides support to men with such needs as mental health conditions, acquired brain injury, dementia and nursing care. The service is registered to accommodate 43 people and at the time of our visit there was 40 people living there.
It is a requirement that the manager of a care home registers with the Care Quality Commission. Whilst there was no registered manager in post when we visited there was a manager of the service who had recently been confirmed in post and was in the process of registering with the CQC.
We had previously assessed the service in October 2024. At that assessment the service was rated overall as good. However, Following our recent visits our rating for this service has changed to requires improvement and we have asked the provider for an action plan.
We found a breach of regulation 12, safe care and treatment. There were times when we saw people received support to eat and drink which was not safe and did not follow best practice. The provider did not have systems and practices in place that always kept people safe. There were occasions when discrepancies occurred in recording the administration of medicine’s which meant that it could not be guaranteed that it was administered in a safe way. Information about people’s safety was not always up to date or clear. We saw incidents recording serios threats of violence which included using a cutlery knife which had not been recorded in the person’s risk assessment. Information about people’s violence and aggression was not clear. Detail describing the violence and aggression and the techniques used to manage it were not recorded clearly in people’s plans meaning staff did not have instruction on how to manage it to keep other people and themselves safe.
We found the provider had enough staff working in the service including nursing and care staff and that staff turnover was low.
We saw people treated with kindness and compassion by staff supporting them. Staff clearly had a good knowledge of the people and used the training they received to meet a variety of needs within the service.
Staff and management were able to describe the values and purpose of the organisation and were committed to creating the best possible service for the people in their care.
People's experience of this service
As part of our assessment process, we spoke to people and families to gather feedback about the service. People were generally happy with the care they received and felt that the home was safe. A family member told us, “He [relative] is safe there and he has never had any falls, it’s going well, and I am happy, my relative is settled”.
Another family member told us, “It has taken years to find a place that meets his [relative] needs and that he is comfortable with, I want him to spend the rest of his days there. A lot of great work has been done, and he deserves the care he is currently getting. His life has changed for the better, he was at deaths door and now he is thriving, I can finally take a deep breath and relax.”
Families we spoke to also told us about improvements they would like to see. They told us that they would like to see their relatives engaged in more activities including going out into the local community. Some families we spoke to were aware that there had been a recent change in management and were keen to get to know the new manager.