The Chimes Residential Care Home in Penkhull has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission following concerns about residents’ safety, safeguarding and management.
What’s new: The Chimes Residential Care Home has been placed in special measures after a CQC inspection identified breaches of three regulations.
Why it matters: Inspectors raised concerns about safeguarding, residents’ safety, staffing and a workplace culture in which staff felt unable to speak openly.
What’s next: The CQC will closely monitor the home and has begun regulatory action. The operator says improvements are already underway and disputes claims that residents have come to harm.
This article is based on reporting from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), a BBC funded initiative set up to strengthen reporting on local democratic issues. The Staffordshire Signal has taken part in the scheme since September 2026, which means we're able to draw on a selection of LDRS stories alongside our own.
A Stoke-on-Trent care home has been placed into special measures due to concerns over residents’ safety. The Chimes Residential Care Home, in Penkhull, has been rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following an inspection in July and August.
Inspectors found that the home, which provides support to older people with dementia and other conditions, was in breach of three regulations relating to management, safe care and treatment, and safeguarding. According to the CQC report, residents were not consistently protected from avoidable harm, with risks and safeguarding concerns not always being identified or monitored.
Some residents told inspectors that they did not feel safe – one person had bruising on their arms, which they believed had been caused while staff were supporting them, but there had been no incident report. Another incident involved a resident demonstrating self-harm and suicidal thoughts, but there had been no evidence this had been investigated or escalated through management systems.
Inspectors found the home had a ‘culture of fear’, with staff feeling unable to raise concerns openly, after being ignored or shouted at. There were also concerns about the care home’s deteriorating condition due to poor maintenance, with inspectors seeing damaged radiators and stained walls.
Sonic Gold Limited, which runs the home in St Christopher Avenue, says the issues are being addressed, but insists that there had been no concerns over residents’ safety prior to the CQC inspection, the first since 2021.
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