A DAWLISH residential home is being investigated by police for the second time in two months.

The force, together with Devon County Council, Devon Partnership NHS Trust, Devon Primary Care Trust and the care homes regulator the Care Quality Commission, are currently looking into a complaint made about St David's Rest Home.

But today St David's owner David Hardee insisted the current investigation was a 'routine procedure' under the requirements of the new Safeguarding Adults process.

He added: "If there were the slightest suggestion of poor treatment of our residents, urgent action would already have been taken."

Devon County Council, commenting on behalf of all the agencies, would not reveal the exact nature of the complaint but they have confirmed a multi-agency 'safeguarding investigation' into the home is underway.

It comes two months after police and the county council investigated a separate complaint by a resident of alleged bullying.

Police confirmed this was looked into but 'no evidence' of bullying was found.

The resident subsequently moved out of the home.

The home is registered to provide care for two people with mental health problems who are aged 65 and over and up to seven people with learning disabilities aged 18 to 65.

A county council spokesperson said: "I can confirm an investigation into an alleged incident at the home is underway.

"We have no reason to believe that residents of the home are unsafe, and the investigation is being carried out with the full cooperation of the home's management."

The spokesman said one resident had temporarily relocated from the home to another residence in relation to the earlier complaint.

But the official stressed: "However the circumstances that led to the resident moving to another residence are totally separate to this current investigation.

"There has been no ban placed by the investigating team to prevent the home's manager from seeing the former resident."

Home owner Mr Hardee said he did not know the exact nature of the incident which led to the current investigation but he did know which resident had raised concerns.

He said: "The word 'investigation' is highly emotive, but should not be seen that way. It is simply the chosen language within these new procedures.

"Our approach to care is highly active, involving quite high demands from vocational training courses and outdoor pursuits, which present certain risks.

"These risks are thoroughly assessed before being undertaken and have previously been referred to as 'sensible risk taking' by our inspector, who has fully approved of the efforts we make in offering our residents so much activity.

"It is right and proper that all provisions such as ours should be regularly inspected and investigated according to CQC and Safeguarding procedures.

"With the help of the investigating team, perhaps we will need to revise certain activities we offer in the future, and we welcome their input."