An East Lancashire care home has had its "outstanding" rating stripped after the healthcare watchdog found multiple failings over safety and "people being deprived of their liberty".

Cherry Tree Lodge private residential care home is a care home providing accommodation and personal care up to a maximum of 23 people in one adapted building. At the time of the inspection there were 20 people living at the service.

The care home, on Bury Road, Rawtenstall, was inspected in January by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with a full report issued on February 15.

In it, inspectors highlighted various issues which led them to rate the premises as "requires improvement".

Out of the five areas – safe, effective, well-led, caring and responsive, three were rated "requires improvement", meaning the overall rating dropped from outstanding, which it achieved in 2019.

In the area of "safe", inspectors found the required health and safety check certificates were not always in place and up to date.

A fire risk assessment was in place but had not been reviewed within the appropriate time frame and there was a lack of fire safety checks with staff having limited knowledge of what to do if there was a fire.

Not all staff had completed fire safety training.

Accident and incident forms were completed following an accident, however during the inspection the staff, including the registered manager, were not aware that falls had occurred and there was no audit or analysis completed.

Inspectors also found that training in medicines needed to be improved and some infection prevention practices needed improving.

The area of "effective" was also rated "requires improvement" with inspectors finding that the necessary Deprivation of Liberty referrals were not always being made and people did not always have mental capacity assessments in place.

The CQC report read: “This meant people were unlawfully being deprived of their liberty.

“Best interest decisions were not always in place and care plans were not always reflective of the restrictions within the service.

“Not all staff had completed Mental Capacity Act training and people were not always deprived of their liberty in a lawful and safe way.

“The necessary assessments were not always carried out in line with the Mental Capacity Act."

The inspection also found that governance processes were not always effective at improving the quality and safety of the service.

There was a lack of management oversight of care records to ensure relevant regulations were met.

And despite auditing tools being in place, they did not identify concerns found during the inspection.

The report added: “When an audit was completed, there was little evidence of learning lessons from concerns found meaning the risk had not been mitigated.

“Two people had an accident one month and no staff, including management were aware of this at the time of the inspection.”

Despite these misgivings, the areas of "caring" and "responsive" were found to be "good".

The CQC will now monitor the progress of the care home and reinspect in due course.

A spokesperson for Cherry Tree Care home said: "As the new  owners we were shocked to say the least, that the CQC rating for Cherry Tree Lodge has been changed from 'outstanding' to 'requires improvement', after the recent CQC inspection on January 9.

"We purchased this care home in mid September 2022 and Louise (the previous owner) stayed on as the registered manager until mid October 2022. 

"The new registered manager, Alison, came on board from mid October.

"Alison is a competent manager with a vast amount of experience in this field.

"Alison has already made many improvements with the care of the residents, overall running of the home and communication with the relatives of the residents which was lacking previously, this was relayed to us when we met with the families who expressed their concern with the previous owners.

"After speaking with CQC they have acknowledged that we have inherited these problems due to things being left and not addressed by the previous owners.

"We have an action plan in place and are actively rectifying the issues highlighted by CQC.

"We have advised CQC that we would like them to come back and re inspect, earlier than the standard 12 month period.

"They have advised us they would be happy to come back in three months as we are confident that we can address issues highlighted in the report within this period.

"We understand that CQC are doing their job. However, I would like to reiterate that we have only had this care home since September 2022.

"Therefore, the issues raised were already there when we purchased this care home, which we have been working on before the inspection and still are."