Care home bosses have apologised for standards falling short at a Bury St Edmunds home after relatives claimed they arrived on Father’s Day to find one member of staff on duty and in tears.

As family members turned up at Care UK’s Davers Court, in Shakers Lane, during Sunday morning they found loved ones still in bed without having eaten their breakfasts.

One woman Liz McLoughlin, 73, from Cowlinge in west Suffolk, said she found her husband Terry, who has dementia, on a chair, slumped over the wash basin and sitting in his own mess.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors who carried out an unannounced inspection at Davers Court in January found it “requires improvement” overall and was failing to met two legal requirements, including around the “recording, dispensing and safe administration of medicines”.

It is not the first time concerns have been raised over Care UK’s homes; Mildenhall Lodge was still not deemed safe by the CQC during two unannounced inspections in December.

Mrs McLoughlin, a grandmother-of-two, said her husband, a former pilot who has Parkinson’s with Lewy Bodies dementia, arrived at the home on Friday and was due to be there for five days so she could have some respite.

She said: “Don’t you think it’s a terrible irony Terry came in here for five days to give me a break and I find my husband in the worst state I have ever seen him?”

She said she had wanted to remove him from the home on Saturday following some concerns she had.

“This is supposed to be a specialist dementia floor. In my opinion there is no specialist dementia care,” said Mrs McLoughlin, who is submitting a formal complaint to Care UK.

Lack of stimulation or activity for some dementia sufferers was also an area highlighted in the CQC inspection report.

A spokesman for Care UK said: “We offer our sincere apologies to residents and relatives at Davers Court for care falling below our usual high standards on Sunday [yesterday] morning.

“Unfortunately we experienced an unusually high level of team members phoning in sick which is partly due to a diarrhoea and vomiting bug which seems to be circulating in the local area. This had an impact on how quickly we were able to bring in additional people to support residents.

“At no point was the safety of residents compromised and we want to provide reassurance that we took appropriate steps to ensure that everybody was comfortable.”

Regarding the CQC report, the spokesman said inspectors has also noted a large number of positives, including correct staffing levels, staff were caring and committed, training was good and food and nutritional support were of good quality.

He said the “excellent” work done by the home manager and the team since the inspection had already led to progress in the areas where CQC felt improvements could be made.

The CQC inspection was the first at Davers Court, which caters for up to 60 people, since it opened in August last year.

In December 2012 Care UK began operating the county council’s 16 care homes and eight wellbeing centres.

Davers Court is a new building on the site of the former home.