A Beccles care home has been told to make urgent improvements amid concerns of uninvestigated abuse and poor standards of care.

St George's Care Home has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and remains in special measures following an inspection earlier this year.

The service, which provides care to older people - many of who are living with dementia, was initially placed in special measures in June 2021 after an inspection found people living there were receiving poor standards of care.

More than a year on, however, and inspectors have now revealed there were still areas of concern which were putting people at risk, including unexplained injuries which weren't investigated sufficiently.

A spokesperson for the home, which is run by Wellbeing Care, said they were "enormously disappointed" with the findings and added improvements were being made since the inspection in April and May.

Louise Broddle, CQC head of adult social care inspection, said: “Following an inspection last June, we set out clear steps that St George’s Care Home needed to follow to ensure better standards of care for people.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any significant improvement and we still have a number of serious concerns about the safety of people living at this service.

“Unexplained injuries and bruising to people weren’t investigated, which meant that the service couldn’t identify potential abuse.

"We also hadn’t been notified of some of the incidents or concerns, which is a worrying lack of transparency.

“St George’s Care Home has a history of failing to provide a good standard of care and has failed to make the necessary improvements.

"This is underpinned by a lack of effective leadership and a high number of changes to management, which has destabilised the service.

“We will continue to monitor the service closely and will not hesitate to take further action if we are not assured it is making the necessary improvements to keep people safe.”

As well as being rated inadequate overall, the service was rated inadequate for being safe, effective, caring and well-led.

It was rated requires improvement for being responsive to people’s needs.

The home will be closely monitored by the CQC and enforcement action will be taken if significant improvements aren't made, which could include closing the service.

The inspection raised concerns about a lack of staff to meet people's needs, as well as a failure to carry out approriate checks on staff, while risks to residents weren't always recognised.

Some residents either already had, or were at risk of, developing press sores and care to prevent these wasn’t always delivered in a timely way.

Concerns were also raised about people's medicines not being well-managed, including one patient who relied on "time-critical" medication for Parkinson's Disease, who had received it late three times in the month before the inspection.

There was also a failure to give residents adequate personal care, with some often found to have food on their clothes and their teeth were not regularly cleaned.

The inspection did, however, find the premises were accessible and resident's communication needs were identified and their privacy respected. Staff also showed patience and spoke to people with affection.

Feedback from relatives was also largely positive, the CQC found, with most saying they were confident any complaints would be dealt with.

The care home also worked alongside other key services such as GPs and community nursing and healthcare teams to help meet the needs of people at the service.

A spokesperson for the home said: "St George’s has been undergoing a process of improvement for some months now, and the team at the home is working hard to counteract the measures outlined by the CQC.

"While we’re enormously disappointed by the recent rating, it stems from aftermath of Covid-19 Pandemic and inspections conducted several months ago and since then, we’ve continued to make improvements in line with recommendations from the CQC.

"As outlined by the CQC’s report, feedback from our residents’ relatives was largely positive and they were confident any complaints would be dealt with – something that we think is a genuine reflection of our care.

"Our residents’ wellbeing is our utmost priority, and we will continue working hard to implement all necessary improvements.

"Our focus is very much on the present, and future, state of the home, and we’re confident we’ve made significant strides in the intervening weeks since the inspection."