Archived: SMART Howard House Project

Updated 8 January 2019

SMART Howard House Project provides a residential service for clients undertaking detoxification from opiates and/or alcohol for up to 12 weeks. A programme of psychosocial interventions is delivered alongside the medical detoxification to help people achieve abstinence and begin working towards long-term recovery. 

The service can accommodate 10 residents. At the time of our inspection there were 9 people receiving treatment at the service.

The service receives referrals from the local community drug and alcohol service for people over the age of 18 who live in Oxfordshire.

The service has been registered with CQC since 16/5/2011 and is registered to provide accommodation for people who require treatment for substance misuse.

The registered manager had recently stepped down, and the area manager had submitted an application to become registered manager.

We previously inspected SMART Howard House Project in 2013 and 2016. At the 2016 inspection we told the provider they should take the following actions:

- The provider should ensure that photographs of clients are attached to their medicines charts.

- The provider should ensure that staff are trained in search techniques.

At the November 2018 inspection we found that both actions had been completed.

Updated 8 January 2019

We rated SMART Howard House Project as good because:

• The service had made improvements following our last inspection in 2016. This included training staff in search techniques and attaching photos of clients to medication charts.

• The service was clean and welcoming.

• All staff were up to date with their mandatory training which included safeguarding, infection prevention and control, Mental Capacity Act and first aid.

• The service delivered treatment for alcohol and/or opiate detoxification in line with national institute for health and care excellence guidelines. There were clear policies and procedures in place to ensure that treatment was delivered safely.

• The service had strong links with community services to help ensure that clients were well prepared before starting treatment and that they would be supported once they were discharged from the service.

• All clients had comprehensive and holistic recovery plans in place.

• Risks were well managed and discussed in daily briefing sessions.

• Staff treated clients with kindness, dignity and respect. Clients gave very positive feedback about the support they received from staff.

• Staff morale was high and staff were well supported by their managers.

• There was a clear incident reporting procedure in place and learning from incidents was shared across the organisation.

However:

• Staff used both paper and electronic files to record client information, but practice was inconsistent. This meant it was unclear where to find information for some clients.

• There was no clear process in place for maintaining the gym equipment in the service. This meant that clients were at potential risk of injury when using equipment that was not appropriately maintained.

Updated 8 January 2019