Archived: Rekindling House

We do not currently rate independent standalone substance misuse services.

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

• Staff were not clear on their roles and responsibilities for incident reporting. Staff had not reported any incidents on the incident reporting forms since 2015.Staff had not received regular training around safeguarding of children.

• It was unclear what training was mandatory for staff.

• Staff were not trained Mental Capacity Act 2005(MCA). There was no policy in place for staff to refer too.

• Staff did not monitor blood pressure, pulse and temperature. The off-site acupuncturist did this.

• Staff recruitment files were not up to date. There was no risk assessment in place for three staff, where previous offences recorded on a disclosure barring system were identified. There was a lack of references for staff in post, one with no dates and relationship details and one worker with a reference from fellow peer worker. Not all staff had a job description.

• The service had no established links with advocacy services, and relied upon local agencies such as the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

• There was a lack of effective governance structure and leadership, with no quality assurance management or frameworks in place to monitor the quality of the service.

• The service did not have visitors due to a past incident. There was no date to review this.

• Clients do not have access to activities outside of the service.

However, we found the following areas of good practice:

• Clients told us they were treated in a positive and supportive way and felt safe using the service.

• Regular house meetings took place for both clients and staff.

• The service had introduced an electronic daily notes system.

• Regular staff meetings took place, and minutes were recorded.