Archived: Lifeline Redcar and Cleveland

Updated 27 March 2017

Lifeline is a registered charity and a national provider of drug and alcohol services since 1971. The organisation has 35 services across England that are registered with the CQC.

Each Lifeline service is based on local need as identified by commissioners. Lifeline Redcar and Cleveland was awarded the whole treatment system contract for drug and alcohol in 2014. The services in the Redcar and Cleveland area are delivered from five locations, three of which are registered separately with the CQC. This report relates only to the Lifeline Redcar and Cleveland service. The service operates out of a main building in Redcar and two hubs, one in Loftus and one in Skelton. These two hubs are not registered as separate locations. The service currently works with approximately 400 clients.

The service operates under four separate contracts;

clinical;

harm minimisation;

care co-ordination;

throughcare and aftercare.

The Lifeline Redcar and Cleveland service delivers on all four contracts through one integrated treatment model. The service provides community care for people with substance misuse problems. The services provided are:

• Harm minimisation.

• Specialist prescribing including community detoxification.

• Care co-ordination.

• Psycho-social interventions including counselling.

• Throughcare and aftercare.

• Family and carer work.

• Criminal justice interventions.

The service is funded by Redcar and Cleveland Council. It has a service manager in place who has applied to be the registered manager. It is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures.

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

We last inspected the service on 13 and 14 July 2016. The service was found to be in breach of Regulation 12 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 Safe care and treatment.

Updated 27 March 2017

We do not currently rate independent standalone substance misuse services.

Following our last inspection in July 2016, the provider was required to make improvements in relation to one regulatory breach. The breach related to concerns about risk assessment and risk management plans. The report about this inspection was published in September 2016. We carried out a focused inspection within six months of the published report and found the provider had made improvements to the service.

• All clients had received an individualised risk assessment.

• Risk assessments were up to date as required by the Lifeline Projects policy.

• Staff had completed individualised risk management strategies where risk was assessed as medium or high.

• A regular audit programme was in place to monitor risk assessment records.

• Staff supervisions and team meetings were used to ensure compliance with policy.

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

• Quality of the risk assessments and risk management strategies varied and some actions required to mitigate client risks were not clear.