Blackburn with Darwen’s drug and alcohol support service, Spark, has been rated ‘good’ in a recent inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The service was awarded ‘good’ ratings in all five categories, showing Spark is ‘caring’, ‘safe’, ‘effective’, ‘responsive’ and ‘well-led’.
The report stated: “We spoke with fourteen clients, and they told us staff were compassionate, caring and went out of their way to provide care and support.
“Some clients praised individual staff and two told us the help they received had saved their lives. They told us they enjoyed the recovery activities like group work, and they could all explain how they were working on their recovery plans”.
Based at St John’s Court and run by Delphi Medical Consultants Ltd who are part of The Calico Group, Spark provide dedicated drug and alcohol support for individuals and families within Blackburn with Darwen.
Claire Illingworth, Head of Operations for Spark, said: “All of our colleagues and partner organisations are focused on delivering the best possible service for those who need us.
“We’re immensely proud of everyone for putting in the hard work needed to keep improving to ensure that our service users get the possible support from us.
“We’ll continue to keep working to make sure we can continue making a real difference to people’s lives”.
During their last inspection in August 2023, Spark was rated ‘requires improvement’, after the CQC found that key areas such as ‘safe’, ‘effective’ and ‘well-led’ all needed improvements.
Since then, the service has significantly improved their record keeping and assessments, whilst staff have received the relevant training needed to provide a better standard of care.
Their last inspection also highlighted a backlog in blood borne virus screenings. Spark are now on target to micro-eliminate the virus in Blackburn with Darwen by December.
The report continued: “At our last assessment in 2023, we rated the service as requires improvement overall. With safe, effective and well led as requires improvement and caring and responsive rated as good”.
“Following this assessment, we rated the service as good. The service had made improvements and is no longer in breach of regulations. Staff now assessed and mitigated risks, client records were now complete, all staff had completed mandatory training, staff employment records were now complete, and governance processes were in place to ensure procedures ran smoothly”.
If you would like to learn more, please read the full CQC report or visit sparkbwd.org.uk.