Plymouth care home placed in special measures after damning inspection

A care home in Plymouth has been placed in special measures following a damning inspection.

Fairglen Residential Home has seen its overall rating drop from good to inadequate after inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited in November.

The home cares for a small number of people with learning difficulties, autism and other complex needs.

Inspectors said staff were not properly trained and used “disrespectful and outdated language” when talking about residents.

'Not safe in their own home'

The home has since been placed in special measures, meaning it will be kept under constant review until a follow-up inspection is carried out in six months’ time.

Debbie Ivanova, who is deputy chief inspector for people with a learning disability and autistic people at the CQC, said: “When we inspected Fairglen Residential Home, we were very concerned that the people were not safe in their own home. 

“As a result, we took immediate action to protect people from harm, and the service is now being supported by the local authority safeguarding team.”

Inspectors said the home cared for two people with epilepsy but staff did not know how to manage an epileptic seizure.

They also said the registered manager “did nothing” to ensure incidents were properly reported and dealt with.

This included a resident’s complaint about physical abuse and another resident injured in a fall.

Neither were reported to the local authority or CQC.

“This was very concerning,” Ms Ivanova added, “as the service was not learning from incidents and making improvements when things went wrong, which meant they were likely to keep happening.”

The home was rated inadequate in all five of the CQC’s key areas for safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness and management.