Buxton Lodge Care Home

The following is CQC's published account of its assessment, published 31 July 2025. References to “we” mean CQC. It describes findings at that time.

Date of Assessment: 26 June 2025.

The service is a nursing care home providing support to older people living with dementia. Some people also had a diagnosed learning disability.

The assessment was prompted by concerns raised to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) by the local authority around pressure care and a lack of leadership in the service. Our assessment identified some concerns in these areas. The provider was in breach of the legal regulations relating to the safe care and treatment of people, the training and support provided to staff, and governance systems at the service.

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ (RSRCRC) guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. We found the service was meeting the principles of RSRCRC.

The service was going through a change of management. The acting manager had been at the service since January 2025 but had recently resigned from the post. The newly appointed manager had been at the service for a week at the time of our assessment and was in the process of registering with CQC. The provider had just employed a quality manager for the region who was working closely with the service.

Risk assessments were not always accurate, and care plans to support staff to manage people’s anxieties were not in place. The storing or recording of medicines was not always safe, and we identified one person who was receiving overly restrictive care without the correct documentation or legal checks in place. Staff were not always up to date with their training and had not received a supervision for a long time. Quality and governance systems were not robust. Where governance systems had identified areas of improvement within the service, no action had been taken to address this. They had also not identified some of the concerns we identified during our assessment.

However, there were enough safely recruited staff available to meet people’s needs. The service was hygienic and tidy, and staffing teams worked well together. Staff felt supported by the management team and knew how to raise concerns if needed. There were close working partnerships with a variety of external partners, such as healthcare professionals and a local school.

We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.