The Care Quality Commission has raised "major concerns" over the welfare of patients at a Westcountry mental hospital.

Langdon Hospital, Dawlish, was found to be failing to meet "essential standards" of care following an unannounced inspection to one of its wards in October last year.

The Owen House facility, which looks after adult men with complex mental health needs, has been putting both patients and staff at risk, according to the report.

The health regulator said their major concern was that the hospital produced poor care plans which failed to meet patients' needs.

Inspectors also criticised a practice of locking the doors to the ward at 6pm, saying that without proper risk assessments, patient's "freedom of movement may be being unnecessarily restricted."

Referring to the systems in place, the report adds: "Patients are being put at risk because there are no guidelines for individual patients for staff to follow if restraint is needed to keep a patient safe."

A spokesman for the Care Quality Commission said: "Evidence showed that some care plans were not person centred, were not written in plain English and in the majority of cases did not identify a goal. We found no evidence of patient involvement in developing the care plans and found nine instances where care plans had not been reviewed in 12 months."

The CQC also said visits to the Knightshayes learning disability wards on the Whipton Hospital site in Exeter raised "moderate" concerns, as did the privately run Penhayes House in the city.

Devon Partnership NHS Trust yesterday apologised for the shortcomings.

Alison Moores, director of nursing and practice, said: "We have made huge strides forward in recent years to ensure that we are delivering safe, high quality services and that we are meeting people's individual needs.

"In the vast majority of cases we are confident that we are achieving this aim. However, it is clear that some aspects of the care being delivered to people with a learning disability at these two sites was not good enough – and we sincerely apologise for this. We have taken immediate steps to address the shortcomings at both sites and are confident that we are now compliant with the CQC's standards. We will, of course, be monitoring the services very closely to ensure that the standards continue to be met."

All three hospitals must respond to the commission within 14 days, detailing how they intend to raise standards.