Inspectors found dirty rooms, poor hygiene practices and mismanagement of medication at a care home which “placed people at risk of harm”.

Laleham Residential Home in Herne Bay has, once again, been given a rating of “requires improvement”, the second-lowest grade possible.

During an unannounced visit, Care Quality Commission (CQC) officials discovered a broken toilet, bathrooms without sinks and several that had been locked from the outside.

Their report into the home, where older people with dementia are cared for, says: “People who used the toilet independently did not have sufficient access to a sink in which to wash their hands.

“Bathrooms which did have toilets and hand-washing facilities were bolted shut to prevent people from using these.

“When we asked why people were restricted from accessing the bathrooms, we were told it had always been that way.

“We raised this with the provider who unbolted some bathrooms during the inspection to address this concern.”

Inspectors also found parts of the service were “not clean”, noting “the wall next to one person’s bed was visibly dirty”.

The report also highlights wallpaper peeling off the walls and staff that were unaware they needed to change their PPE after using the toilet.

The CQC adds: “Risks to the environment had not always been identified by the provider. For example, uncovered radiators which could place people at risk of burns.

“Once these were identified they were addressed by the provider.”

Another major criticism was that the Laleham has “continued to fail to ensure the proper and safe management of medicines”.

"We are obviously disappointed with the report and our aim is to absolutely support our residents, so they are well cared for and supported..."

“Some medicines were not being administered in line with the patient safety leaflet guidance,” the report says.

“Where medicines were stored in their original boxes there continued to be no system in place to ensure there were the right number of tablets remaining.”

The inspectors found a large box and bag of drugs in the medicine room which were to be returned to a pharmacy.

“However, documentation had not been completed to ensure that all medicines were accounted for,” the report says.

The CQC adds The Laleham “continued to fail to do all that was reasonably practicable to assess and mitigate risks. This placed people at risk of harm.”

In response to the rating, manager Berverley Keith said: “We are obviously disappointed with the report and our aim is to absolutely support our residents, so they are well cared for and supported.

“The report identified residents and their relatives gave positive feedback about The Laleham and staff.

“Our staff were acknowledged for their skills and experience to support our residents well and knew residents well.

“We have worked hard since our last inspection and these improvements were recognized.”

The 60-person-capacity nursing home in Central Parade also received a “requires improvement” rating when it was last evaluated last year.

In 2019, the care home was criticised for failing to protect residents from “abuse and improper treatment”.

And in 2017 the previous owners of the site were fined £60,000 for breaches of health and safety laws after a worker died when she became trapped in a lift.

Ms Keith added: “Moving to a world of ‘digital’ has identified shortfalls, and we are rapidly turning this around, to ensure absolute compliancy for a good standard and have confidence we can achieve this.”