Archived: Lifeline Middlesbrough (Park Road North)

Updated 19 August 2016

Lifeline is a national provider of drug and alcohol services established in 1971. The organisation currently employs 850 members of staff, 230 volunteers and has over 80 services across England.

Each Lifeline service is based on local need as identified by commissioners. Lifeline Middlesbrough provides community care for people with substance misuse problems. The services provided are:

• Harm minimisation and needle exchange

• Psychosocial interventions

• Care co-ordination

• Assessment

Prescribing services, enhanced psychosocial interventions and recovery support for clients are provided through a sub contract and partner agencies.

The service is funded by Middlesbrough Borough Council. It is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The service has a CQC registered manager in place.

CQC had previously inspected the service in 2012 and 2014. There were no compliance actions following these inspections. This is the first inspection using the new methodology.

Other providers operate in the Lifeline premises as part of the recovery model and the wider recovery community including mutual aid groups. Mutual aid groups are where people come together with their peers to build a network of support.

Updated 19 August 2016

We do not currently rate independent standalone substance misuse services.

We found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Staff did not always act on risks highlighted in care records. Reviews of risk were not always clearly evidenced in the care records.

• The care records system contained both paper and electronic records. We found that information in the paper records was not always in the electronic record. The clinical aspect of the service was subcontracted to the Fulcrum Medical Practice. The Fulcrum Medical Practice used a different care records system and we saw that up to date prescribing information was not always in the Lifeline care record.

• Mandatory training for staff was limited. The service had identified core training and had an action plan in place to ensure all staff attend their identified core training.

However, we also found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had enough staff to ensure clients were seen promptly.

• Procedures for safeguarding clients from abuse were robust and staff demonstrated a clear understanding of them.

• Clients received timely assessments of their needs. There were no waiting lists for access to the service.

• The model meant that the service had effective links with other providers which ensured clients had access to a range of services to support their recovery from substance misuse.

• The service had recently introduced measures to ensure reporting of incidents and learning from incidents was robust. This meant that there were chances to learn from incidents and prevent them re-occurring.

• Staff received an annual appraisal and regular supervision.

Updated 19 August 2016

See overall summary.