A Surbiton care home is in special measures after being found inadequate following its third inspection this year.

The rating follows breaches in regulation at inspections in January, April and August.

The Care Quality Commission's (CQC) report into Park Lodge care home in Surbiton shows the inspection betw-een August 18 and August 20, found medicine was not stored safely.

In addition, the morning medicine round was constantly disrupted and took more than two-and-a-half hours on both days.

An unlocked boiler and sluice room that residents of the privately-run care home could wander in to was deemed unsafe.

Care for a single person per week is listed on a care home online directory at £750 to £800 at the home in Park Road.

After a run of closures in recent years, including Newent House in Surbiton and Hobkirk House in New Malden, there are no council-run care homes in the borough.

As well as Park Lodge, Kimberley Nursing Home in Surbiton is also rated as inadequate by the CQC, and is also privately run.

St Mark’s Councillor Liz Green said: “We have many very well-run private care homes in the borough, but it is always worrying when one falls below expected standards.

“While it is tempting to say local authority-run homes are better than private, that would be doing a disservice to those excellent private care homes.”

Deputy mayor Mary Clark said people tended to feel more comforted with council-run care homes, where less importance is put on shareholders and profits.

She said: “I think the council-run ones have been pretty good, as they have not got to think about profits. But, of course, they have closed them down now.”

The report, published on October 20, said the home was not cleaned to an “adequate standard”.

It said: “We saw that although people were supported to eat and drink throughout the day, people’s nutritional needs were not regularly monitored and assessed so the risk of malnutrition could be identified early for action to be taken to minimise this.”

The CQC has taken action against the provider, CHD Living, and will report again when the action is complete.

A spokesman from Park Lodge said the wellbeing of residents was the home’s priority and inspectors had noted interactions between staff and residents were positive.

He said: “When CQC re-inspected the home in May 2015, we had met the requirements set out in the improvement notices that they had issued in January 2015.

“Management expected that momentum to continue under the new manager, which, unfortunately, was not sustained.

“The company has put in place an experienced team and senior managers to work towards the improvements required.”

Kingston Council leader Kevin Davis said: "All care homes in the borough, whether council or privately run, should be providing the same high quality of care to their residents. Registered care homes, regardless of who runs them, are assessed against the same robust national quality standards.

"The council works closely with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the CQC and Your Healthcare to support privately-run care homes in the borough.

"We have a quality assessment framework which supports care homes in carrying out self-assessments against a set of standard requirements. We have a providers forum which meets every three months and allows all care home providers in the borough to share best practise and explore issues.

“Finally we have a multi-agency quality monitoring group where the performance of care homes is reviewed independently. This monitoring group is tasked with identifying care homes that are struggling and supporting them to improve.

"The council will be working with the CCG, CQC and Your Healthcare to ensure Park Lodge is provided with all the support it requires to see standards quickly return back to where they need to be."