Our Home was subject to a two-day inspection, on the 13th August 2025 and the 20th August 2025.

We were expecting a report from the CQC that would note the limited shortfalls observed on these two dates and that the Home would be classed (within the CQC’s own classifications) as a Requires Improvement (the Home’s previous grade). However, we were shocked to receive a report which sought to reclassify our Home as Inadequate. No doubt this will be a shock to all of community stakeholders.

We have robustly challenged the CQC through their own process. We believe that the CQC have taken isolated incidents and sought to turn them into evidence of a wider systemic issues that simply do not exist. Regretfully the CQC have failed to take on board the entirety of our response regarding the factual accuracy of their report.

The next stage will be a CQC independent ratings review (under the CQC process). We have considered other legal challenges and whist we believe that we could meet with some success we do not want to divert funds and time away from the continued improvement of the Home.

Over the last two years we have spent significant resources, time and effort in improving both the quality of care and the building at Saint Thomas’ Priory.  We continue to improve the Home environment with meaningful decoration, including a new lounge, tearoom and a 1930’s themed cinema. We continue to enhance our team’s education and training including Dementia Train the Trainer, Dignity workshops, Care to Smile qualifications, new updated clearer policies in key areas and greater emphasis on incident debriefs. We have appointed a very experienced and highly qualified Clinical Governance Manager to further support our dementia floor.

We do not agree with the CQC that the quality of care has deteriorated since the last inspection and the findings of these two days by the CQC are at odds with the findings from many months of working with the local authority. We believe that the current position of the regulator is inconsistent with the true position of the status of the Home and moreover is inconsistent with the feedback we regularly receive from our residents, relatives and community stakeholders.

Despite what the CQC have said in their press release, apart from issuing three warning notices in September, the CQC have not been in contact with our Home other than to respond to our challenges and are not providing any enhanced supervision or displaying any actions which suggest that we are under close review.  We have invited them to come and reinspect.

We are extremely proud of our achievements in this short period and remain, as ever, optimistic about the future of our Home and the care we strive to provide.

Paul Smith - Home Manager