A CARE home has stopped taking new admissions because its service has “not been to the high standards we would expect”, a spokesman confirmed this week.

Less than three months ago, Heron House in March passed an inspection by the Care Quality Commission with flying colours. A review panel concluded that the home, owned by Four Seasons Health Care, met all essential standards of quality and safety.

Now Heron House has announced that improvements at the home, which has accommodation for 95 residents, are being carried out and there has already been substantial progress.

This week a company spokesman said: “The home has a good reputation and in the most recent CQC report in April it was fully compliant.

“Recently some aspects of the service have not been to the high standards that we would expect. As a result of this we decided voluntarily to suspend new admissions while we bring about improvements and agreed this with the relevant authorities.

“We are working in close consultation with the contracts monitoring team and the CQC to implement our improvement plan and have already seen substantial progress.”

The report issued after the April 2012 review said there had been concerns expressed about a number of issues, including cleanliness and infection control, meeting nutritional needs, safeguarding people who use services from abuse, and supporting staff.

But at that time, the CQC reported that residents were cared for by staff who were supported to deliver care and treatment safely and to an appropriate standard.

The report also said that “People we spoke with said they had confidence in the skills, knowledge and abilities of staff. They said that they had no concerns about how staff looked after them”.

A spokesman for Heron House added: “We set a turnaround target of six weeks, which we consider is appropriate to ensure sustained improvement.”