- 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 28 July 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 9 June 2026 to 30 June 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 10 people were using the service. At our last assessment we rated the service inadequate, we also took enforcement action against the provider. We were previously concerned about medicines management, managing risks posed to people, fire safety, 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, for example specific concerns relating to choking risks had been mitigated. However, we found some continued concerns relating to managing risks posed to people, staffing, governance, medicines and fire safety. The provider had not made the required improvements following the previous inspection and we found further concerns at this inspection. The service continues to be rated inadequate, and the service remains 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.
The provider was not managing medicines safely. Audits to manage medicines were not completed effectively to ensure risks could be identified and acted upon. Care plans did not always contain sufficient information to support the management of people’s specific health conditions, and some plans contained information which was contradictory. The service did not have sufficient staff to safely evacuate the service through the night.
The service did not have effective governance systems in place. Management oversight tools such as daily walkarounds were not completed consistently and accidents and incident monitoring was ineffective as not all incidents were considered as part of the analysis. Roles and responsibilities were not established within the management team and there was a lack of oversight of the service.
Recruitment was completed safely and staff were observed to be warm, kind and caring towards the people they supported.
It is noted that following the assessment the service has engaged with support and has undertaken some immediate actions to address concerns raised. This includes increasing staffing levels at night time to reduce the risks associated with evacuating the building in the event of an emergency.
People's experience of this service
People and their relatives we spoke to were happy with the support in place at Westbourne House. We observed interactions between people and staff which were genuinely kind and caring, and staff appeared to know the people they support well. Comments from people included, “It is a good place, it is nice, the staff are friendly and I enjoy to food” and “I am happy and yes, I feel safe. I like my room.” We saw that people were able to personalise their living spaces as they chose to do and were free to come and go from the service as they wished. The service is in close proximity to community resources such as shops, cafes and public transport which people used frequently.