A new £5m Dartmouth care home was failing to meet residents basic needs when it came to personal hygiene, nutrition and continence, when it was inspected by health watchdogs, a report has revealed.

Staff did not have to information they needed to meet the vulnerable residents needs, the report said.

And there were concerns about the lack of leadership at the 80-bedroom River View Care Centre which opened in February, a Care Quality Commission report said. The commission carried out two inspections of the European Care Group-run home in March after receiving concerns about residents' safety.

Police became involved in investigating issues at the home as five of the 13 residents were moved to community hospitals across the area. One of them died a few weeks later.

Since then the commission has carried out a third inspection which took place last week and found that the care home service had improved.

That is due to be published in the near future.

As a result of its failings in March, the care home was handed two formal warning notices giving it until April 19 to ensure effective systems were in place to plan and deliver care and to assess and monitor the quality of service to protect the residents.

The commission said residents were moved out of the car home because 'their needs were not being met'.

It went on: 'Relatives we spoke to were very concerned about the standards of care at the home, and about the lack of leadership.

'We found that people's basic care needs, such as personal hygiene, nutrition, continence and pressure area care, were not being met.

'Care plans lacked detail which meant that staff did not have the information they needed to enable them to meet people's needs.

'Systems had not been developed that would have enabled the management team to identify and manage risks. As a result people had experienced unsafe care.'

The report added: 'The senior manager in charge at the time of our inspection showed a commitment to learning and taking appropriate action to address the risks identified.'

It said that in one case a visiting health care professional had intervened because the fluids one resident was being given put them at 'risk of significant harm'.

In another, a patient's neck brace had not been changed when it should have been changed daily.

The care plan documents for one patient had been left blank while in another case the inspectors were given conflicting information about the diet and care plan for an extremely vulnerable dementia resident.

The report said that many documents relating to residents' care and needs had not been fully completed or were blank.

A spokesman for European Care Group said in response to the commission report: 'The report is from an inspection in March. Since then we have worked closely with all the relevant authorities to raise care standards at the home.

'We are pleased that a separate unannounced CQC inspection this week confirmed improvements have been made. We will continue to work with all the appropriate authorities to ensure we keep raising the quality of care.

'The health and well-being of the people we support is our absolute top priority. We are committed to providing quality care and we will keep residents and their families regularly updated.'