- Care home
Westbourne House
We served warning notice’s on Doves Care Services Ltd on 13 February 2026 for failing to provide safe care and treatment, and failing to have good governance systems in place at Westbourne House.
Assessment report published 3 March 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 4 February 2026. Westbourne House is a residential care home, providing support to people of varying ages, some of whom with a physical disability, mental health conditions or dementia. At the time of our inspection 7 people were using the service. At our last assessment we rated the service requires improvement, we also took enforcement action against the provider. We were previously concerned about medicines management, managing risks posed to people, environmental risks, staffing and governance. We carried out this assessment to check if the provider had made the required improvements.
We found the provider remained in breach of regulations. Whilst we found some improvements had been made to the environment and medicines management, we found some continued concerns relating to managing risks posed to people, staffing, governance, and some remaining environmental concerns. The provider had not made the required improvements following the previous inspection and we found further concerns at this inspection. The service is now rated inadequate, and the service has been 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 time frame within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.
People were not always supported by enough staff, and lone-working and on-call arrangements were not consistently effective. People were not always protected from avoidable harm. Staff did not always provide food to people in line with their assessed needs, and seizure monitoring concerns from our previous assessment had not been addressed.The provider did not appropriately address fire safety hazards. Safeguarding processes were not always effective. The service was not consistently applying the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Although DoLS authorisations were in place, capacity assessments for key decisions were not undertaken. Incident reporting systems were inconsistent. Some improvements had been made in infection control, refurbishment, and some aspects of medicines management. However, medicines storage remained a concern. Recruitment was safe, but delays in refresher training meant the provider could not evidence staff had the skills needed to support people safely. Working and on-call arrangements were not consistently effective. People were not always protected from avoidable harm.
Some care plans and risk assessments often lacked sufficient detail to guide staff safely about people’s mental and physical health conditions.However, people’s preferences and life history was included in their care plans. Whilst we found people had input from external professionals to manage their health needs, we could not be assured staff provided evidenced based support to people due to concerns we found relating to risk management and a lack of staff refresher training.
Governance systems were not effective in identifying and actioning concerns we found. Whilst audits had been introduced since our last assessment, these failed to recognise concerns we found, and not all issues we found at our last assessment had been addressed. Staff told us they felt supported in their roles and staff received regular supervisions.
People's experience of this service
People were happy with their care and support. People and relatives told us staff were kind and caring. Comments include, “The staff are kind and caring and I get on well with the staff and the manager at the home.”and, “The home and the staff treat [name ]really well they are always looking for things like personal items and do make them feel comfortable living at the home. The staff at the home provide support with keeping therapeutic activities in place. [Name] enjoys arts and crafts and gardening this helps with keeping [name] busy.This helps with their memory.” People were supported to choose activities, including outings and in-house activities. People and relatives told us they felt listened to. People told us they enjoyed the food on offer and could choose their meals. People were supported to keep in touch with family and friends. We observed staff treating people with respect and the service had a warm and welcoming atmosphere.