Residents of the Streatham home told CQC inspectors they didn’t always feel staff were kind and caring
A care home in South London has been told it must improve after inspectors found staff did not have enough training to support autistic people, those with a learning disability and people with mental health needs.
Thanet House in Streatham has received an overall ‘Requires Improvement’ rating following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in February and March 2026.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) approached Thanet House for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The care home, located at 50 Barrow Road, provides support to people living with mental health conditions, autistic people and those with a learning disability.
The CQC said it carried out an inspection of the service after receiving concerns about the safety and quality of care. Thanet House previously had a ‘Good’ CQC rating, but following its most recent inspection, the service was downgraded to ‘Requires Improvement’.
In a CQC report published on June 8, inspectors said: “Risks to people’s safety were not always managed safely and the provider did not have robust processes in place to identify and mitigate risks to people’s health and wellbeing.
“People did not always receive person-centred care, support to access the community and opportunities to work towards greater independence. The provider was also operating CCTV in the service without following national guidance to ensure people’s rights were not being affected.”
According to the report, people told inspectors they did not always feel staff were kind, caring and understanding of the support they needed. Some people had recently raised concerns about staff conduct towards them.
Inspectors said although the service had taken action to resolve the concerns, more time was needed before people could feel “completely confident” in being treated with kindness and compassion.
Despite these concerns, inspectors said they did observe positive interactions between people and staff, and people spoke positively of some of the staff who knew them well. Inspectors saw staff treating people with sensitivity and compassion.
Recruitment processes were reportedly “not robust” and audits had failed to identify and fix issues inspectors had found with medicine records and person-centred care.
Inspectors identified four breaches of regulations in relation to person-centred care, staffing, fit and proper persons employed and good governance. All five key assessment areas that relate to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led the service is have received a ‘Requires Improvement’ rating.
When assessing how safe the service was, inspectors said: “Although the service specialised in providing care to people with mental health conditions, autistic people, and people with a learning disability not all staff had not undertaken training in learning disability and autism.
“Most staff had not received mental health training, and training in managing distressed behaviours.”
When assessing effectiveness, inspectors said the service did not routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. The service did not always ensure outcomes were positive and consistent, or that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.
On whether the service was caring, inspectors said the service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff. There was a wellbeing strategy in place which set out the provider’s commitment to building a supportive workplace where staff felt valued.
On responsiveness, inspectors said there were some “shortfalls” in how the service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was not always joined up, flexible or supportive of choice and continuity.
When assessing how well-led the service was, inspectors said: “The [service] did not focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement. They did not always encourage creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcomes and quality of life for people.
“Persistent gaps in documentation, lack of robust auditing and failure to identify issues before the inspection showed effective learning systems were not embedded.”
On March 27, the CQC issued a warning notice for Thanet Healthcare Limited for failing to operate effective governance and improve the quality and safety of the services provided at Thanet House.
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