Inspectors have urged bosses of a Colchester care home to improve standards after being told the service "needed more staff" in a watchdog visit.

Crouched Friars Residential Home, which is managed by SA & JO Care Ltd, was visited by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors in May.

The home, in Crouch Street, was previously rated 'requires improvement' after an inspection from February last year, and prior to that it had been in special measures after a damning inspection in 2019.

The watchdog made the visit after it had received concerns in relation to the management of medicines, staffing and safeguarding at the home.

In a recently-published report of the service, the CQC found the home "did not have effective systems to minimise the likelihood of risks posed to people" and had a history of poor compliance.

Residents said "the service needed more staff" and they were, at times, "waiting for personal care".

However, residents said they felt safe in the care of the staff and described the home's workers as "kind and caring".

The CQC was also assured that the provider was preventing visitors from catching and spreading infections and arrangements in place met the current government guidelines.

Crouched Friars was again rated 'requires improvement'.

A spokesman for SA & JO Care said: "The safety and happiness of our residents is our top priority, so we are taking the feedback from CQC very seriously.

"We have a detailed plan in place to ensure that we can quickly address every area in which we fell short of the high standards we expect.

"Our experienced management team is working alongside staff members at Crouched Friars and many significant changes have already been made and we have a long-term plan in place.

"We are working with all the relevant authorities and we’re confident that the CQC will be satisfied with the changes when they next carry out their next inspection.

"We’re reassured the action required to improve does not affect our residents in terms of care and support.

"Customer feedback on the service remains positive including the fact that residents said they 'felt safe with the staff', and described the staff as being kind and caring."