Inspectors have blasted a dementia nursing home in central Sutton where residents faced a ‘risk of significant harm’, following an unannounced visit in February.

Jesmund Nursing Home, in York Road, was given the lowest rating of ‘inadequate’ after Care Quality Commission (CQC) examiners raised serious concerns about residents’ safety as they reviewed the home last month.

It was the second time the care home, which looks after 22 people, had faced a comprehensive inspection in seven months.

The CQC has since placed the home under special measures, prevented new admissions to the nursing home and ordered it to improve within six months or face having its licence cancelled.

In the report, published on Friday, March 24, inspectors said: “We found some of our previous concerns had not been sufficiently addressed and there was a risk of significant harm to the people using the service.

“There were ineffective processes in place to assess the individual risks to people’s safety and ensure adequate management plans were in place to mitigate those risks. Risk assessments were not updated in response to incidents that occurred and staff did not provide people with the level of support they required to remain safe.”

Inspectors found residents had fallen due to uneven surfaces, windows were unrestricted - meaning people were at risk from falling from height - and some patients had to wait up to 30 minutes to have their soiled protective garments removed.

Other concerns included staff failing to respond when people needed help and assistance, ignoring patients concerns and failing to support residents in a dignified and respectful way.

Debbie Ivanova, deputy chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, said: “We have taken urgent action to restrict any new admissions to the home and requested weekly updates from the provider in regards to any incidents and accidents that occur and how these are managed.

“We are considering any additional action that we may need to take to further protect people from harm and will report on this when it is complete.

“Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if we have not taken immediate action to propose to cancel the provider’s registration of the service, will be inspected again within six months. The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe.

“If not enough improvement is made within this timeframe and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service.”

A representative from the nursing home said: “There were some parts of the report that we felt were quite severe, but the home have taken it very seriously and we are moving forward and have reacted very positively.

“The home is reacting to each part in the report and we have to make sure that our responses are sustainable. We hope when the inspectors come back they will take us out of special measures.”