A nursing home in Cheam has been labelled as “inadequate” after inspectors discovered eight breaches of care including a failure to report allegations of abuse.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator for health and social care in England, inspected Cheam Cottage Nursing Home in Park Road on May 30 and June 1 this year.

Eight breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 were recorded by the inspectors as an overall rating of “inadequate” was submitted meaning the service is in “special measures”. Cheam Cottage Nursing Home will now be kept under review and if immediate action is not taken their registration could be cancelled.

They are required to make “significant improvements” in the next six months.

“I’m not safe here,” was what one person claimed to the inspector before making allegations of physical abuse by staff and the registered manager.

According to the regional manager, this wasn’t reported because the person in question “had a history of making false allegations”.

The inspector report commented: “The person had no risk assessment or management plan relating to the risks of them being abused or of making false allegations and the local authority was not previously aware of any history of allegations from this person.

“This showed that the provider was not taking all allegations of abuse seriously, which put people at increased risk of abuse and ill-treatment.”

Most other people the inspectors spoke to said they felt safe.

The inspection also noted the risk of developing pressure ulcers “was not adequately managed”.

A summary read: “Pressure ulcers and wounds were not appropriately recorded or risk assessed and people did not have wound management care plans. This meant people were at unnecessarily high risk of developing pressure ulcers or of existing wounds deteriorating further.”

The privacy and dignity of residents was not always promoted by staff as people were “left with food on their hands or wearing stained clothing and staff did not always knock on people’s doors before going in”.

According to CQC, staff were not always recruited safely because some legally required documents were not obtained.

Medicine care plans for individual people failed to be consistently up to date.

Activities were not person-centred and those who didn’t want to take part in what was offered were given no alternatives, the report stated.

Legal requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the Deprivation of Library Safeguards (DoLS) were met by the care home.

The number of staff to support the 13 residents was adequate.

Cheam Cottage Nursing Home has been approached for a comment.