• Community
  • Community substance misuse service

Archived: The Gate

Overall: Outstanding read more about inspection ratings

John Dobbin Road, 158-166 Northgate, Darlington, County Durham, DL1 1QU (01325) 267230

Provided and run by:
NECA

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 16 January 2020

The Gate is part of the NECA group. It is a recovery and wellbeing service which supports people who chose recovery as a way out of dependency on drugs and alcohol. The service offers a recovery orientated approach to drug and alcohol misuse including:

  • An open access harm reduction service;
  • An open access service to advice, information and support;
  • Substitute prescribing;
  • Psychosocial interventions.

At the time of our inspection, the service had 2,579 registered clients within the harm reduction service and 484 clients in structured treatment.

The Gate was commissioned through Darlington Borough Council. At the time of our inspection, the contract was out to tender.

The Gate has been registered with the Care Quality Commission since 23 January 2012, to provide diagnostic and screening procedures and treatment of disease, disorder and injury. The service has a registered manager.

The service has been inspected four times, the most recent in December 2016. There were no compliance issues identified during the previous inspections.

Overall inspection

Outstanding

Updated 16 January 2020

We rated this service as outstanding because:

  • There was compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership. Leaders and managers demonstrated high levels of experience, capacity and capability to deliver the highest standards of care. Staff were proud of the service as a place to work and spoke highly of the culture. There was strong and effective collaboration, team-working and support with a common focus on improving quality of care.
  • There were consistently high levels of constructive and meaningful engagement with staff and people who used the service. People who used the service had access to an extensive range of opportunities to provide feedback on the service and the care they received. Staff used this feedback to make meaningful changes to the service to meet client’s needs.
  • Feedback from people who used the service was continually positive about the way staff treated them. Clients and carers felt staff ‘go the extra mile’, and the quality of care and support provided exceeded expectations.
  • There was a strong, visible person-centred culture. Staff were highly motivated and inspired to offer care that was kind and promoted people’s dignity.
  • The service provided safe care. The premises where clients were seen were safe and clean. The number of clients on the caseload of the teams, and of individual members of staff, was not too high to prevent staff from giving each client the time they needed. Staff assessed and managed risk well and 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 the full 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 multidisciplinary team and relevant services outside the organisation.
  • The service was easy to access. Staff planned and managed discharge well and had alternative pathways for people whose needs it could not meet.