Westcliffe House Limited

Updated 23 March 2020

Westcliffe House provides accommodation for persons who require treatment for substance misuse and/ or detoxification (a period of medical treatment, usually including counselling, during which a person is helped to overcome physical and psychological dependence on alcohol or drugs). The service has the capacity to treat and care for up to 20 men and women at any one time, and had 11 clients at the time of the inspection.

The service offers residential treatment programmes for clients recovering from drugs, prescription medication and alcohol addiction. They also offer accommodation for clients requiring detoxification; this treatment is delivered and monitored by a local community substance misuse service with whom Westcliffe House have a written agreement. This external service monitors and oversees any detoxification within Westcliffe House and were not part of this inspection.

Westcliffe House also offers counselling to clients with mental health problems such as obsessional compulsive disorder, eating disorders, gambling and co-dependency. Westcliffe House offers a range of services that include specialist therapies, training programmes and aftercare. Clients were funded by local authorities or could access the service privately if they wished.

The service is registered for the following regulated activities:

• Accommodation for persons who require treatment for substance misuse.
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

There is a registered manager in post.

We last inspected Westcliffe House in December 2018. The service was rated requires improvement overall, with requires improvement in safe, effective and well led, and good in caring and responsive. We issued requirement notices under Regulations 12 (safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (governance) in relation to safe management of medications and lack of effective systems and processes for monitoring and reviewing staff training, supervision, induction, policies, client medication, admissions and client care records.

This was the third time Westcliffe House was issued a requirement notice due to concerns about the governance of the service under Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. We had previously inspected this service and issued requirement notices in relation to governance in May 2018 and at a previous inspection.

At this inspection we found that the service had made a number of changes to address these issues and the service had worked towards meeting the requirement notices, although there were some outstanding issues still to be fully addressed.

Updated 23 March 2020

Our rating of this service improved. We rated Westcliffe House as good because:

• The premises where clients were seen were safe and clean. The service had enough staff. Staff followed good practice with respect to safeguarding.
• Staff developed holistic, recovery-oriented care plans informed by a comprehensive assessment. They provided a range of treatments suitable to the needs of the clients and in line with national guidance about best practice. Staff engaged in clinical audit to evaluate the quality of care they provided.
• The teams included or had access to a range of specialists required to meet the needs of clients under their care. Managers ensured that these staff received training, supervision and appraisal. Staff worked well together as a team and with relevant services outside the organisation.
• Staff treated clients with compassion and kindness, and understood the individual needs of clients. They actively involved clients in decisions and care planning.
• The service had a strong sense of community engagement and responsibility, and had been nominated for national awards in recognition of their community work.
• The service was easy to access. Staff planned and managed discharge well.
• The service was well led. Governance processes had improved since the previous inspection and ensured that the service ran smoothly.

However:

• Not all clients had risk assessments and risk management plans reflecting the assessed risks in their files on the day of the inspection. Clients did not all have early exit or discharge plans in their individual records.
• Medication audits were in place, but were not always sufficient to pick up medication errors or to evidence action to address issues or errors.

Updated 23 March 2020

Residential substance misuse service for up to 20 clients.