A Burnham-On-Sea care home has been found in breach of four legal regulations following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Fernery House, located on Burnham seafront, was assessed between 28th October and 21st November 2025, with inspectors concluding that the service “requires improvement” overall.
The home, which supports people with learning disabilities and autistic people, can accommodate up to seven residents.
The CQC reported concerns across several key areas, including safety, effectiveness, responsiveness and leadership, and issued a warning notice to the provider — the National Autistic Society — on 15th December 2025 for failing to ensure good governance — see the full report on the Care Quality Commission website.
CQC says: “At the last inspection, the service was rated ‘requires improvement’ and found to be in breach of 4 legal regulations. At this assessment we found that although the provider had made some improvements in areas identified by us and set down in their action plan, these had not consistently been sustained and embedded.”
“The service remained in breach of regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, staffing, the way they gained people’s consent and assessed their mental capacity to consent and good governance.”
“We identified an additional breach of legal regulation in relation to person centred care. The provider must send us an action plan detailing how they will address these breaches.”
The CQC’s published ratings show the home was marked ‘Inadequate’ for safety, and ‘Requires Improvement’ for effectiveness, caring, responsiveness and leadership.
The National Autistic Society says it is taking action to address the failings identified, with the CQC continuing to monitor the service closely.
Candice York, Managing Director for Adult Services at the National Autistic Society, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The quality of care that we deliver and the safeguarding of the people we provide services to is our absolute priority. We take the warning notices and findings of the Care Quality Commission report extremely seriously. ”
“We have a robust action plan in place to address the findings and ensure the quality of care at Fernery House returns to the high standard that the people we support deserve.”
“Our focus now is to address the areas for improvement in the report to ensure we deliver the standards of care and support that we expect and demand for autistic people.”
