Winchley Home

Date of assessment: 04 February to 04 March 2026.
The service is a residential home providing accommodation with nursing and personal care for older people and people living with dementia. The service can support 41 people. There were 32 people living in the service at the time of the inspection.
This was a comprehensive inspection of all quality statements, which was prompted due to the age of the last rating. The last comprehensive inspection of the service was in 2018, where the service was rated as Good.
We carried out unannounced visits to the service on 04 February 2026 and 11 February 2026.
The long-standing registered manager had left the service in December 2025, and the service had an acting manager in place who had stepped in to this role in January 2026.
We found that Winchley Home was providing an inadequate service to the people who used the service. This inspection found the provider to be in breach of 3 legal regulations relating to need for consent, safe care and treatment, and governance. The provider did not have an effective quality assurance and governance system in place, which had resulted in shortfalls that placed the people who used the service at risk of harm. People's risks had not all been identified and mitigated, and where risks had been identified, their management was poor. Staff had not received the necessary training to support people’s needs effectively; however, staff were observed to treat people with kindness.
The provider was not following the Mental Capacity Act 2005 when assessing people’s capacity and ability to make decisions.
We found several concerns regarding fire safety, for example, an emergency grab bag was not in place and Personal Evacuation Plans (PEEPS) were not readily available or were not in place, which placed people at significant risk in the event of an emergency.
We sought immediate assurances from the provider to take action to significantly improve the service people were provided with. The provider was responsive and developed an action plan to address the improvements required.
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 into 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 use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a time frame within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.