A care home where residents got food poisoning is facing a criminal investigation. Swansea Council's trading standards team is probing Ashgrove House in Waunarlwydd.
The care home on Swansea Road received a zero-star food hygiene rating following a council inspection in August last year, which found "urgent" improvement to food safety was needed. Shortly after the inspection WalesOnline asked for a copy of the report, but a council spokesman said it could not be released because the home was "subject to a criminal investigation".
Sam Allen, who was general manager at the home last November, told us that month: "I wasn't aware we were under criminal investigation to be honest, I had no idea. The food hygiene issue was the council said we'd had an outbreak of food poisoning, but only a couple of residents had it in a home of 25 residents that ate all the food."
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Asked how many residents were ill, he said: "There were three who had a certain bacteria and eight who got ill overall, over a stage of three or four weeks. I can't remember what bacteria it was. No one was admitted to hospital and they all got over it pretty quickly.
"It wasn't a complaint from a resident. We just noticed some of them had loose stools and sent off samples to be tested. We did our job. I think Public Health Wales were involved and I assume the council got involved from there. We don't know where the bacteria came from."
We visited the site this week to find Ashgrove House closed. The council has confirmed the criminal investigation is ongoing but says no more information can be released at this stage.
The business had net assets of £213,995 in 2021, according to its latest accounts. Robert Hunt, 58, has been the only active director since 2014. He was also a company director at Pendarren Court mental hospital in Aberbeeg, Abertillery, but resigned in November 2017, three months before a damning inspection which saw the hospital shut down. Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) suspended its registration after finding staffing levels were “inadequate to provide safe and effective care”.
Ashgrove House has capacity for 55 residents but there were far fewer by the time HIW carried out an inspection in March this year. The report reads: "At the last inspection [in January], we found that the service was not meeting legal requirements in relation to standards of health and safety. As a result, we took enforcement action.
"Ashgrove House has now improved its standard of health and safety. Most of the home is unoccupied as there are very few residents who are currently being accommodated on the ground floor. We found all parts of the home to be clean and hygienic."
The zero-star food hygiene rating from last August remains in place. The council's inspector deemed Ashgrove to need "major" improvement in its hygienic food handling and management of food safety, while "improvement necessary" was the verdict for the cleanliness and condition of its facilities.
WalesOnline has asked Mr Hunt for more information on the food poisonings and whether the closure is temporary. We have also approached Public Health Wales for comment. You can read more Swansea stories here.
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