The service was last inspected in 2016, at which time we did not rate independent substance misuse services.

Following this inspection:

We rated Recovery Lighthouse as Good because:

• The service was well staffed, with well trained and experienced staff to care for clients. Staff put into practice the service’s values, and they had contact with managers at all levels, including the most senior.

• The service was clean, comfortable and homely, having recently been redecorated and refurnished to a high standard.

• All clients had holistic care plans, stored on an electronic case management system with all other relevant records. 

• Clients spoke very highly about their experiences of the service, their relationships with staff and the impact the service had on their lives.

• There were policies in place to manage risk, including to clients leaving treatment prematurely and clients who were at risk of self-harm. All clients had risk assessments and detailed risk management plans for every identified risk.

However

• Medical admissions records, including assessments, were stored in paper files separate from the electronic system and were not always complete.
• While the service had safe policies in line with national guidance to support people undergoing detoxification programmes, staff did not consistently request or obtain medical summaries from clients’ GPs prior to starting treatment.

We do not currently rate independent standalone substance misuse services.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had enough trained and experienced staff to care for this number of clients and their level of need. Staff put into practice the service’s values, and they had contact with managers at all levels, including the most senior.

• The service had safe policies and practice in line with national guidance to support people undergoing detoxification programmes.

• Clients were highly complementary about the support and care they received during their detoxifications.

• There were policies in place to manage risk including for clients who wanted to terminate their detoxification early.

• The service had strong links with community services to support clients during and after their detoxification programmes.However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Although toilets and bathrooms had signs on doors indicating which gender they were for, men and women used all toilets and bathrooms regardless.

• Staff did not monitor the temperature in the room where the controlled drugs were stored.

• Staff searched clients’ belongings when they were admitted to the service, however there was no search procedure in place and clients were not told this would take place prior to admission.

• It was not easy to follow the medicine reduction regime for some clients as medicine administration was not clearly recorded across all medicine recording documents.

•   There was no system in place to service the service’s digital blood pressure monitor.

• The service did not use treatment outcome tools to measure the effectiveness of the treatment they provided.

• There were no leaflets offering information about advocacy or treatments available in the service.

• The service did not set key performance indicators to measure their performance.