Updated 6 March 2026
Date of assessment: 16 March 2026
The White House is a residential care home providing support to older people, people living with dementia and people living with a physical disability. There were 13 people living at the service at the time of our inspection.
The assessment took place to follow up on breaches identified at the previous assessments. The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in safe care and treatment, infection control, staffing, medicines, safe environment, safeguarding, dignity and respect, person centred care and poor governance and oversight. Improvements were not found at this assessment, and the provider remained in breach of all of these regulations.
Since the last inspection in December 2025, the Nominated Individual (NI) had taken over as the manager at the service. We were not assured about the capability of the NI or that they had knowledge of people’s complex needs, or oversight of the service. We will refer to the NI as the manager in this report.
We continued to identify a closed culture at The White House (a closed culture is a poor culture in a health or care service that increases the risk of harm): this had an ongoing major impact on people’s safety and the quality of people’s lives. Significant risks relating to people’s health conditions had not been appropriately recognised, responded to or managed which put people at risk of avoidable harm. We found areas of the service that had poor infection control and medicines were not being managed in a safe way. The furnishings and fixtures were not maintained to a safe standard. Staff at times were working long hours and staff were not adequately trained or assessed as competent to undertake their role. There was disrespectful language being used in their care documents. Leaders failed to ensure all incidents of safeguarding were investigated and reported to the local authority. Stakeholders were not always provided accurate information around people’s needs and health. Care plans lacked guidance for staff around people’s needs. Leaders failed to ensure they assessed people’s capacity appropriately where restrictions were in place. Leaders failed to report all statutory notifications to the CQC. There was a lack of robust oversight and governance by the leaders.
In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward. This 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.