Leiston Old Abbey Residential Home

The following is CQC's published account of its assessment, published 17 June 2026. References to “we” mean CQC. It describes findings at that time.

Date of inspection: 12 March to 7 April 2026. We visited the service on 12 and 20 March 2026.

Leiston Old Abbey Residential Home is a residential care home providing support to up to 40 older people, younger adults and people living with dementia. At the time of our inspection visits, there were 20 people using the service, including people living with dementia and a learning disability. This comprehensive inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service, including the length of time since the last rating. The last inspection report for this service was published 22 August 2019, and the service was rated good. At this inspection the rating has changed to inadequate. We found breaches of regulation relating to safe care and treatment: including infection control and assessing risks, staffing: including staff training, person centred care and governance.

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ 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 which most people take for granted. We found people did not consistently receive care and support in accordance with the principles of this guidance.

Systems to monitor and improve the service were not robust enough to support the provider to independently identify shortfalls and address them. Where shortfalls had been identified, the systems in place were ineffective because the shortfalls persisted. There was a complaints procedure in place and concerns were investigated and responded to. There was a lesson learned process in place, however, lessons were not always embedded to improve the service. All incident forms did not demonstrate managers had reviewed them to ensure appropriate actions had been taken.

The tool used to assess the staffing levels required to meet people’s needs did not take into account the layout of the building and the support people required for social activity and interaction. Not all of the staff working in the service had received the training they needed to meet people’s needs; the registered manager told us this was being improved. Systems were in place to reduce risks of abuse, however, not all staff working in the service had received safeguarding training.

There was a maintenance team who undertook checks on equipment to reduce the risks to people. The service was not clean and hygienic throughout. The provider was changing their medicine’s systems to electronic, whilst we identified people’s medicines which were taken orally were managed safely, records did not demonstrate people always received the support their needed with prescribed creams.

People’s needs were assessed prior to using the service, these were used to inform care plans. However, care plans had not been kept up to date, were generic in parts, some areas were contradictory and did not reflect person centred care. Risks were not always assessed and guidance was not always provided to staff in how the risks were mitigated.

Staff treated people with kindness and compassion and protected their privacy and asked for their consent before providing any care and support. However, the shortfalls identified in our inspection, did not demonstrate people were provided with a caring service at all times.

We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns relating to staffing and person centred care found at this inspection.

In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.

This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we user our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.