A CARE home that was rapped for safety failures has made 'urgent improvements' to rescue its service.

Stowford House has been taken out of special measures after taking steps to tackle a catalogue of errors, which were highlighted in a damning report by health inspectors.

The Shippon home was reinspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and given a fresh overall rating of requires improvement, following an earlier rank of inadequate: the worst possible rating.

Inspectors revisited in May and said in subsequent report: "The provider took action to improve management. Staffing was increased immediately and the management consulted with relatives and staff on how improvements would be urgently made.

"An external consultant was brought in to oversee improvements in care planning and to improve the way the home supported people with dementia."

In January the Faringdon Road home, which opened in 2011, was criticised by inspectors for bad safety management and a lack of respect for residents' confidentiality.

Poorly-supervised residents were then said to be left risk of drowning, falling out of bed or choking on food.

The reinspection revealed improvements but the CQC noted the service was still 'not always safe'.

It added: "Incidents and accidents had not always been correctly identified and recorded.

"Sufficient experienced and trained staff had been deployed to work in the service and recruitment was ongoing.

"People's medicines were safely managed although some records needed to improve.

"The service was not always well led. Improvements had been made but needed to be embedded into the service to ensure ongoing plans were sustained."

Categories concerning safety and management were rated requires improvement in the most recent report, released in June, but those of care, effectiveness and responsiveness were rated good.

The home is run by St Cloud Care but works with Oxfordshire County Council, which is responsible for social care in the county.

St Cloud Care's managing director Arnon Rubinstein said: "The report indicates all the hard work done and the great teamwork achieved at the home, of which we are very proud."

He said he was grateful to the council's adult social care team for its support and guidance, which he credited for contributing to the improvements.

Lawrie Stratford, the council's cabinet member for adult social care, said: "The council has played its part - however the real credit must go to the care providers themselves who have made such improvements. I congratulate them and hope to see further improvements in coming weeks and months."

Of the county's 231 care providers, 84 per cent are rated good or outstanding, which exceeds the national equivalent of 76 per cent.