A CARE home in Bournemouth where staff “did not always respect people’s dignity and privacy” has been ordered to improve in every area it was assessed in.

Templeman House, a residential home on Leedam Road in Northbourne, has been told by the Care Quality Commission that it is not meeting six regulations in a report published on June 25 following an inspection in March.

Although staff were praised for being “kind and caring”, the watchdog criticised the home for leaving continence aids used by residents in communal areas, which it said “did not promote dignity”.

“We observed another occasion where a member of maintenance staff [was] sawing wood in a person’s bedroom,” the report said. "We saw that the person was in their bed asleep and there was dust being created by the sawing.

“On a third occasion we saw a member of staff assisting a person with personal care in their bedroom, however they had not closed the bedroom door.”

Inspectors spotted that the communal toilets did not have locks, alerting the manager to the situation who later placed them back on the door.

They raised concerns about the home’s “cleanliness shortfalls that compromised the control of infection”, adding: “The lounge soft furnishings were heavily soiled and needed replacing.”

The report said it received “contradictory feedback” about staffing levels, with one employee claiming the home had a “reliance on agency staff” who “did not always know people’s needs”.

The CQC judged that the home’s “staffing shortfalls” were in breach of the Health and Social Care Act.

Relatives of residents complained that laundry and clothing had gone missing, according to the report.

Inspectors also said medicines were “not managed safely because some medicines were not signed for and some people did not have as needed medicine plans in place.”

Graham Brittain, director of of Residential Care Services at Care South, which owns the home, said: “Care South was disappointed to receive the report following a March 2015 inspection of Templeman House and has been working hard to rectify the areas identified which required improvement.

“CQC has recently changed its inspection regime which requires adaptation from care homes and accordingly we have put an ongoing quality improvement action plan in place to ensure that the progress the home has made thus far is sustained, and we are confident that we will meet the required standards on further inspection.”