Inspectors are proposing to shut a care home after finding "insufficient evidence of improvement" to address concerns they had raised.
The Care Inspectorate - the independent body which scrutinises care services in Scotland - is now formally proposing to cancel the registration of Clachnaharry Care Home in Inverness.
As a care home cannot operate unless it is registered with the Care Inspectorate, the action could close the home down.
The home is run by RDS Healthcare Limited and the company now has two weeks to ask the Care Inspectorate to review its decision.
Inspectors visited the home in May of this year and then issued a notice requiring improvements to be made last month.
A spokesman said: "We have significant concerns about the quality of care offered to elderly and vulnerable residents at Clachnaharry.
"We served a formal improvement notice last month but have not seen sufficient evidence of improvement.
"We are therefore proposing to cancel this care home's licence to operate.
"The provider now has fourteen days in which to ask us to review our proposal, with reasons."
When inspectors visited the home in May they ranked the quality of care and support as "weak", with the quality of the environment and the quality of management also classed as being of this level.
During their visit the inspectors noticed some medication was missing from the home and also found one of the medicine cupboards on the ground floor was not secure.
In some of the bathrooms the report revealed that "shower heads were noted to be rusty and shower enclosures mouldy with broken edges" while there were parts of the home where "the floors were unsafe due to broken floor boards which were causing holes in the floor".
While the quality of staffing was graded as being "adequate", inspectors said in May that "staffing levels in the home were not always sufficient to meet the needs of the service users".
Staff morale was also said to be "very low" at the time of the inspection.
The improvement notice issued in September required seven areas to be addressed, including requiring the home to show that at all times there were staff working "in such numbers as appropriate for the health, welfare and safety of the people using the care service".
The home was also told to review each resident's personal plan and to demonstrate that the premises were "safe, clean and hygienic at all times".
The Care Inspectorate spokesman stressed: "At all times the health, safety and wellbeing of people using care services is paramount. While the majority of care homes in Scotland perform well, we do not hesitate to act on concerns where necessary.
"We are working closely with NHS Highland to safeguard the welfare of all residents."
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