We are With You North Lincolnshire

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

This means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good.

Good: This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care. Leaders had the skills, knowledge and experience to perform their roles. Staff knew and understood the provider’s vision and values and how they applied to the work of their team and put people at the heart of the service. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. Governance processes operated effectively. Performance and risk were managed well. Teams had access to the information they needed to provide safe, person centred, compassionate and effective care. There was constructive engagement with staff, people who use services and external partners. Staff collected and analysed data about outcomes and performance. They used this to continually identify improvements for the benefit of people who use the service.

We have not awarded this service a score for Well-led.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Well-led.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

Staff knew and understood the provider’s vision and values and how they were applied in the work of their team. In 2025 the service had conducted a review of their organisational strategy as a collaborative approach with views from clients, colleagues and volunteer workshops and external stakeholders interviews.

Staff told us the leaders of the service encouraged an open, supportive and honest culture. Managers we spoke with were positive about the support they received, and all staff we spoke with were client focused and a shared goal to ensure the best outcomes for all the clients.

The organisation had also received an Investors in People silver award which recognised an organisations commitment to placing people at the centre and demonstrated a positive, inclusive and high performing workplace culture.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service had exceptionally inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They always did so with integrity, openness and honesty.

Managers led by example and were positive role models for staff. Staff were positive about the leadership of the service, staff spoke about positive and effective meetings, de-briefs and support following incidents or difficult appointments, regular and effective supervision sessions, access to training and development.

Managers had a good understanding of the services they managed. They could explain clearly how the teams were working to provide high quality care. Managers and staff had a well-developed understanding of equality, diversity and human rights, and they prioritised safe, high-quality, and compassionate care. This was reflective in the feedback we received from clients, staff and external partners.

All members of the service we spoke with internally and externally told us that the managers were visible in the service and approachable to clients and staff. Managers genuinely welcomed feedback, fed back learned lessons and involved people in reviews of concerns, incidents, deaths and safeguarding. Managers had a high level of constructive engagement with people both internally and externally to the service.

Commissioners and all external partners we spoke with told us that the leaders of the service were present in meetings, took an open and collaborative approach to new initiatives and “drives the service at all times.” They told us that local services could hold each other to account in a supportive way with the primary purpose of delivering the best outcomes for the users of the service.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

The service had policies and procedures to support whistleblowing and managers promoted an open and honest culture within the service.

Staff we spoke with understood these policies and felt comfortable using them without fear of reprisal. We observed that the service had a whistleblowing QR code in the service to enable people to raise concerns anonymously.

Managers were aware of the risks around closed cultures and implemented actions such as staff surveys, engagement with clients and governance processes, such as audits and meetings to disseminate best practice and shared learning.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service valued diversity in their workforce. They work towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who work for them.

Staff told us they were supported and were able to apply to work flexibly to account for personal circumstances such as caring responsibilities and health issues. Staff told us that managers put reasonable adjustments in place for staff members to help them conduct their role, such as working from home and adaptive equipment in the workplace.

We saw evidence that the service had been awarded as a Disability Confident Employer, they had undertaken and successfully completed the disability confident self-assessment and were taking all of the core actions as part of the government initiative to support employers to become more inclusive of disabled individuals.

The provider undertook equality monitoring of staff within the service to ensure it is diverse in its make-up and representative of the client group. The service employed some staff with a lived experience and recruited and supported volunteers into the service. We spoke with 2 volunteers during our assessment of the service who told us they were well supported and told us that self-care and self-worth was part of the culture, “it is promoted for clients in the groups and also within the team.”

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver high-quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They always act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and share this securely with others when appropriate.

Our findings from other key questions demonstrated that governance operated highly effectively. The leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve high-quality, person-centre care.

Governance was well-embedded into the running of the service. There was a strong framework of accountability to monitor performance and risk leading to the delivery of demonstrable quality improvements to the service. There was a clear framework of what must be discussed in team meetings to ensure that essential information, such as learning from incidents and complaints, was shared and discussed.

Staff had implemented recommendations from reviews of deaths, incidents, complaints and safeguarding alerts at the service level. For example, domestic homicide reviews identified lessons learnt which the service had already actioned and were implementing the learning and training identified.

Staff undertook or participated in local clinical audits. The service had an audit cycle for daily, weekly, monthly and annual audits. These audits were very effective in providing assurance and staff acted on the results when needed.

Staff understood the arrangements for working with other teams, both within the provider and external, to meet the needs of the clients. We received feedback from commissioners and external partners who told us that the service was embedded within the local system attending and participating in all relevant meetings and were active partners of the combined drugs partnership.

We saw a copy of the risk register which included risks regarding the re-tender process and challenges recruiting to non-medical prescriber posts. Staff concerns matched those on the risk register.

The service had business continuity plans in place for emergencies.

The service used systems to collect data that were not over-burdensome for frontline staff. Team managers had access to information to support them with their management role. This included information on the performance of the service, staffing and client care. Information was in an accessible format, and was timely, accurate and identified areas for improvement. This was monitored well, themes and trends identified and any concerns were identified and discussed in relevant meetings.

Staff had access to the equipment and information technology needed to do their work. The introduction of an artificial intelligence tool for note taking was working well and staff fed back that this was helping to improve the quality of care. The service was also progressing to an electronic prescribing system.

Information governance systems included confidentiality of client records.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services work seamlessly for people. They share information and learning with partners and collaborate for improvement.

Leaders engaged with external stakeholders and feedback we received from all external partners was extremely positive. Commissioners and partners told us that they work together in a collaborative way to support client care and treatment. The service welcomed constructive challenge and collaborated with partner agencies and local third sector organisations to promote joined up care and facilitate engagement, for example the employment service was based within the same building and the community nursing team and community liver specialist nurse held clinics in the service.

The service took part in several local community activities to connect with the community led by the services community engagement coordinator. The service delivered workshops on drug and alcohol awareness and ran sessions in collaboration with other local services. The service attended college and university events to engage with students and families. The service employed and supported volunteers in the service and a lived experience worker. The new service contract model also included supporting more students to support and grow the well-established workforce.

The service was an important part of its community. It developed community links to reflect the changing needs and preferences of the people. The service included collaboration with the general hospital, supported continuity of care from prison, worked closely with the police, ambulance services, community nursing teams, community mental health services and carers services.

The service had a strong partnership with local recovery service and had developed a referral process so that clients could access both services throughout their recovery journey. We received feedback from the recovery service who told us that “the pathway between the two services is very well run and I believe gives the service users the best chance of reaching their recovery goals.”

The service had a social media account which provided information, advertised events for the community and presented volunteer and client recovery stories to challenge misconceptions and overcome stigma.

Where the service identified that improvements could be made and added these to a delivery improvement plan, which the service shared with us. This highlighted some completed objectives such as improving the GP pathway and prison in reach. The development plans included improving links with the sexual health services, strengthening pathways and improving support for neuro divergent clients.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service had a strong focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They always encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research.

Staff were given the time and support to discuss opportunities for improvements. Staff used quality improvement methods, completed audits, treatment outcomes profiles, engaged with commissioners and gained feedback to ensure the service maintained a good standard.

The service had introduced an online platform providing mobile access to strategies and tools for clients and were giving this to clients at the referral stage to support with calendar reminders, access to mindfulness techniques and location alerts to prompt users when approaching risky places.

The service were undertaking a pilot of an artificial intelligence tool for note taking. Staff we spoke with told us they required consent from the client. Staff we spoke with told us the use of this tool was improving time management, note taking and reducing administration time to enable more time supporting clients with appointments. Staff also felt it enabled more active listening.

In 2025 the service had used funding to offer Buvidal as a detox option and due to the success of the treatment were also offering this in 2026. The service had identified that the Buvidal clients attended the service for the injection but did not always engage in psychosocial interventions. We read case studies in relation to client’s experiences of treatment, which were uplifting. The service planned to implement a pathway and offer including the Buvidal treatment and psychosocial interventions to strengthen clients support and overall completion of treatment.

In Oct 2023 the service declared micro elimination of Hepatitis C (referring to the goal of achieving a significant reduction in the prevalence of hepatitis C within specific populations or areas) and were the first service within the operational delivery network to achieve this. The services performance against the micro elimination targets maintained and revalidation was achieved in July 2025.

We spoke with the non-medical prescribers who informed us that the service were also developing a same day prescribing offer for new clients.

The service also undertook a mystery shop at local pharmacies biannually, as a minimum, to understand the client experience. Feedback was provided at the time of the visit, for example if a client was told they could only have one needle. Positive feedback would also be provided by the service.