Swanton House Care Centre

The following is CQC's published account of its assessment, published 6 November 2025. References to “we” mean CQC. It describes findings at that time.

We started a comprehensive assessment of Swanton House care centre on 21 and 27 May 2025, conducting an unannounced site visit and then continuing to gather information. The reason for our assessment was due to the age of the service rating. CQC last inspected this service on 05 February 2020 and 07 February 2020 and rated it good (report published 26 February 2020). Since then, we have received information of concern, so we wanted assurances that people were receiving safe care.

Swanton House Care Centre can accommodate up to 49 people in 3 separate units who may have mental health condition, disability, physical disability and, or autism and who require residential and nursing care. During our latest assessment we identified 2 breaches of regulation, Regulation 12 Safe care and treatment and Regulation 17: Good governance.

We were concerned about management oversight of such a large service and discrepancies in care across the units which meant some people received poorer outcomes. We found care records and assessments were not as robust as we would expect, and they did not fully consider people’s needs and risks associated with their care. Whilst reviews were taking place, these did not always identify changes in people’s needs, to ensure people’s ongoing care could be met by the service. We found care plans did not reflect people’s individual needs in terms of their preferences and aspirations and did not clearly show people had been involved in planning their care. Whilst external activities were taking place, people had limited access to the community due to staff and driver availability. This meant we were not assured by the registered manager or records we viewed that people’s care was sufficiently personalized.

Hospital admissions over time had occurred and we found poor planning in relation to thinking ahead and how people might wish to be cared for should they become seriously ill or dying. Hospital passports help ensure continuity of care between different care settings. We found these to be out of date or not containing essential health information.

We have assessed the service against 'Right support, Right care, Right culture’ guidance to make judgments 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. Both the environment and scope of daily living opportunities did not assure us that the service was meeting the best practice guidance and although the registered manager told us “People were thriving,” we did not see evidence to support this.

We found there was a consistent team of staff who were provided with care and support to the people using the service and knew their needs well. Staff worked under the leadership of a registered manager and individual unit managers and team leaders. People and their families were happy with the service provided, and people had consistency of support. A team of ancillary staff and maintenance staff ensured the environment was clean and well maintained. On-site activities were good but not fully inclusive given the wide range of needs. There were spacious grounds, a community hub, and other facilities for people to enjoy. The registered GP and other health care professionals had a good relationship with the provider and told us they kept people’s health care needs under review. Our medicines inspector found good medicine practices which ensured people received their medicines safely.