The Care Quality Commission
  • Care Home
  • Care home

St Albans House

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

2 St. Albans Road, Clacton-on-sea, CO15 6BA (01255) 221698

Provided and run by:
Achieve Together Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

St Albans House provides personal care for up to 5 people with a learning disability, autistic people and people with a physical disability. At the time of this inspection there were 4 people using the service.We undertook an unannounced visit to the service on 27th March 2025 where we met with people, staff and management. We have completed a comprehensive assessment which means we have assessed all 33 quality statements.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives. The ethos in the home supported this. Care was person-centred and served to promote people's dignity, privacy and human rights. The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and staff helped ensure people could lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.

At the previous inspection of St Albans House (Report published 03 July 2023) the provider had failed to ensure people were protected from the risk of abuse or improper treatment. The provider had not operated robust systems to mitigate risk and help keep people safe. The service was rated inadequate.

In the interim period the home had been sold to a new provider and we found people were no longer at risk of abuse or improper treatment. The home now had an experienced registered manager who operated robust systems to mitigate risk and continuously monitored people's health safety and welfare.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic. The service met this guidance.

This service has been in Special Measures since 03 July 2023. There has been a change of provider since the last inspection in June 2023. The new provider has demonstrated significant improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

28 March 2023

During a routine inspection

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

About the service

St Albans House is a residential care home providing personal care to 5 people at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 5 people.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Right Support: People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

Right Care: Care is not sufficiently person-centred and does not adequately promote people’s dignity, privacy and human rights

Right Culture: The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff does not adequately ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 01 December 2020 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 27 March 2019.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to the systems and processes to protect people from abuse and improper treatment; the systems to ensure care and treatment was provided in a safe way for people and the systems to assess, monitor, and mitigate risks to the health, safety and welfare of people using the service.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Special Measures

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.