An independent substance misuse clinic in Thetford has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), following an inspection undertaken in April 2022.
Verve Health, which opened in June 2021, provides detoxification and rehabilitation treatment for people dependent on drugs or alcohol.
The inspection found staff shortages and a lack of training put people at risk of harm, and that premises weren’t clean or well-maintained.
It also found there wasn’t adequate support for people’s physical or mental health needs, and they weren’t involved in decisions about their care.
Behind these issues was a lack of effective leadership to identify problems and plan improvements.
As well as being rated inadequate overall, the service was rated inadequate for being safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
CQC will inspect the service again within the coming months to determine whether improvements have been made. If there is insufficient progress, CQC will use its enforcement powers further to ensure people are not exposed to poor quality care.
Craig Howarth, CQC head of hospital inspection said:
“People using Verve Health were clearly not receiving the care and support they needed.
“We had significant concerns about the clinic’s staffing levels and found people didn’t have access to the full range of specialists to meet their individual needs or keep them safe.
“People told us they felt misled about the treatments offered at the service, and they didn’t feel staff were interested in their concerns.
“We also found there was no clear way for people to provide feedback on their care, and incidents were often not reported or investigated. This failure to listen to people using the service, or learn from things that went wrong, meant problems became entrenched.
“People should be able to access, safe, effective and compassionate care - and we have told the service what it must do to comply. We won’t hesitate to prevent it from providing care to people if we aren’t assured of swift and significant improvement.”
The inspection found there weren’t enough staff with the right training, skills and experience to care for people at the service, and there wasn’t a consultant psychiatrist or psychologist to support people’s mental health needs, or to work with those experiencing trauma.
People weren’t always involved in decisions about their care and they didn’t receive support for any physical health needs, including ongoing detoxification. Instead, they had to access this separately through their own GP surgery.
Some treatments advertised - including yoga, trauma therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy and eye movement desensitisation reprogramming - weren’t taking place, while the holistic therapies offered came at an extra cost.
Inspectors also found the premises were unclean and unsafe.
There were several ligature points, which people might use to injure themselves, that had not been recognised by staff or made safe. Additionally, rooms lacked alarms for people to call for help in an emergency.
The issues inspectors found were worsened because people reported they didn’t always feel cared for or treated with respect. Inspectors saw records of people raising concerns being told if they didn’t like their care to ‘just leave’.
Behind these issues was a lack of visible leadership which collectively didn’t have the skills, knowledge and experience to perform effectively.
However, staff felt supported by other staff, particularly the on-site nurse. People also told inspectors that some staff were supportive and caring.
CQC served the provider three warning notices requiring it to make several improvements within a legally binding timetable. These warning notices related to Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), Regulation 17 (good governance) and Regulation 18 (staffing).