A person with learning disabilities was “pinned down” by staff from an “unsafe” care agency which has been plunged into special measures.

Kent and Medway Domiciliary Care Agency, based on Henwood Industrial Estate, Ashford, has been hit with the damning rating after government inspectors made a range of alarming discoveries.

Officials found some staff members “punished residents if they did not behave”, used “degrading language” and subjected people to “unlawful restraint”.

“Staff told us that on more than one occasion they needed to 'pin down' a person as a form of restraint,” said officials.

“We observed one staff member telling a person they would not be able to do an activity they wanted to do, if they did not 'behave' as a form of punishment.

“And staff members also told us that a person was forced to sit on the toilet despite telling staff they didn't want to. The staff member told us this was for staff convenience."

The service has now been downgraded from “requires improvement” to “inadequate” – the worst possible rating – by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which regulates health and social care providers in England.

The care agency is run by a company called Voyage Care and assists people with learning disabilities and/or autism in their own homes - helping people at 11 “supported living settings” across Kent.

But CQC officers found people did not always receive compassionate care, and that in speaking to clients and completing health reports, staff used “inappropriate” and “degrading” language.

“Carers’ daily notes for some people included, '[person] woke up with an attitude', '[person] put on the seizure' and [person's] room smelt of s**t and wee’”.

Watchdog inspectors heard workers at the Ashford agency referring to the people they were caring for as "manipulative" and "spoilt brats".

The damning CQC report published on March 16 also highlights issues of safety and hygiene in people’s rooms at the various locations attended by the agency, such as broken plug sockets found underneath a sink “causing a risk of fire and electrocution”.

"We regret that we fell short of the high standards we expect of ourselves..."

“In one room we observed there to be no toilet seat on the person's toilet while other rooms we visited were visibly unclean and odorous," they added.

Other issues included unsafe medication practices, inadequacies in staff training and failures by management to identify and assess risks to people's health, safety and welfare.

“The registered manager failed to pick up on the abuse that people had been subjected to within the service," the report says.

“And they had failed to ensure there was an effective system in place to identify additional training that was needed."

Voyage Care’s managing director for the south east, Ayesha Trott, says she accepts the CQC’s findings.

“We regret that we fell short of the high standards we expect of ourselves at the time of the inspection,” said Ms Trott.

“We have a duty of care to the people we support and our colleagues and nothing is more important to us than their safety and physical and emotional wellbeing.

“This rating is extremely disappointing, but we are working tirelessly to improve the support provided from Kent and Medway DCA and are fully committed to making a swift return to our sector-leading quality performance.

“We are encouraged to see some clear improvements in both the quality of support provided and the culture within our team in recent weeks."