Archived: The White House

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.

The inspection took place on 16 December 2025. 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 18 people living at the service at the time of our inspection.

The inspection was prompted in part by notification of an incident following which a person using the service sustained a significant injury. This incident is subject to further investigation by CQC as to whether any regulatory action should be taken. As a result, this inspection did not examine the circumstances of the incident. However, the information shared with CQC about the incident indicated potential concerns about the management of skin integrity and staff not following guidance from health care professionals.

This was a focused inspection to examine those risks. During the inspection we found other concerns related to unsafe care, competency of staff, infection control, the environment, safeguarding concerns and poor governance. We opened up the inspection to examine these concerns. We have identified repeated breaches of regulation relating to the assessment of risk to people’s wellbeing and safety, people not being protected from the risk of abuse and neglect, the cleanliness and safety of the service, staff training and competence, people’s rights not being respected and the overall governance of the service.

There had been a newly recruited manager to the service since the last inspection. Staff fed back they felt supported by the new manager. However, whilst audits were taking place, these were not sufficiently effective to ensure improvements were made and embedded. We were not assured about the capability of the manager or that they had knowledge of people’s complex needs, or oversight of the service

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 timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.

The White House provides care and support for older people, the majority of whom were living with dementia. Some people also have physical disabilities. We undertook this assessment to review whether the provider had met their warning notices. Prior to the inspection, we also received concerns around the safe care of people.

We completed this assessment on 27 May 2025. We covered all of the quality statements in Safe and Well Led key questions and 1 quality statement in the Caring key question. The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation to safe care and treatment, people being safeguarded from abuse, staff not being effectively deployed and not being trained and supervised appropriately. Previous breaches in these quality statements also related to people not being treated with dignity and respect, the lack of robust governance and the CQC not being sent notifiable incidents. Improvements were not found at this assessment, and the provider remained in breach of these regulations.

The provider continued not to have appropriate systems in place to ensure people were protected from the risk of unsafe care, abuse or neglect. There were not always sufficient levels of suitably qualified and trained staff deployed. There remained a lack of robust management and provider oversight to review shortfalls of care. We identified 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.)

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. 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 timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.