Archived: Addaction Recovery Centre - Liverpool South ARC

Updated 20 March 2018

Addaction Recovery Centre Liverpool South provides community substance misuse services for people in South Liverpool. The service is commissioned by the local authority, and all clients are funded through these arrangements with the city council.

Addaction Liverpool South is registered to provide the regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury;

• Diagnostic and screening procedures.

At the time of inspection there was no registered manager in place. A registered manager is the legally responsible and accountable person for compliance with the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated regulations. The provider had recently appointed a new service manager who had applied to become the registered manager for this service and Addaction Recovery Centre – Roscoe Street and was being supported in the interim by a registered manager from another Addaction service until registration processes have been concluded.

The service provides a drug intervention programme and accepts judicial referrals, working closely with people when they are released from prison. The service also provides and recovery services. The integrated service provides open access to people seeking help with a range of illicit substance use. They provide opiate substitute prescribing (such as methadone) by referral only. Staff are also linked with a number of GP surgeries, to provide treatment and support in partnership with the GPs, known as shared care.

Addaction Liverpool South is one of three Addaction recovery centres that provide services across the metropolitan city of Liverpool.

Addaction Liverpool South has not previously been inspected by CQC.

Addaction Liverpool South is owned and provided by a central charitable organisation, Addaction, who provide over 120 services across the United Kingdom.

Updated 20 March 2018

We do not currently rate independent standalone substance misuse services.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had enough staff to care for the current caseload of clients, with the average number of clients per each member of staff depending on individual complexities and comorbidities.Staff received timely supervision and appraisals and completion of all mandatory and additional training was up to date.

• The service had a GP medical lead and a non-medical prescriber. The service had volunteers and recovery champions, who were people who had experience of previously using substance misuse services.

• Clients and staff both spoke highly of the positive atmosphere and sense of family across the service with a good rapport between staff and management.

• Clients who we spoke with were positive about their experiences of the service. They felt they were treated with dignity and respect by staff. They felt involved in their treatment planning and decisions while being provided with information about their care programme.

• Staff completed comprehensive assessments of clients, which included risk, which staff used to develop recovery plans. The holistic assessment clients’ captured drug usage, physical, social and mental health care needs.

• The service had introduced a number of innovative approaches. It had also participated in a number of research projects with the aim of improving the health and social wellbeing of clients.

• There were established pathways for referring clients to the service from community detoxification services, GPs, the courts and the police. There were no waiting lists, and clients were usually seen within a few days of referral.

• Staff were able to identify and respond to risks and concerns including safeguarding and unexpected exits from treatment.

• Support and substitute prescribing was provided in accordance with national guidelines.

• Incidents, audits and complaints were reported, and reviewed centrally by the governance team at Addaction. Lessons learned were shared with staff using developmental techniques which focused on individual learning.

• The service monitored its performance and its impact on clients which it shared with commissioners and local partners.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• The service had no provision for monitoring safeguarding alerts they had raised.

• The service did not notify the CQC of the deaths of clients who were being prescribed under a shared care arrangement and where the regulated activity was not being provided by Addaction.