A private hospital dedicated to helping people in the north-east beat their alcohol and drug addictions has been praised by inspectors.
The Alexander Clinic in Oldmeldrum was visited by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) in July.
Four areas were reviewed during the unannounced inspection, three of which – care and support, staffing, management and leadership – were rated “very good”, while a fourth, quality of information, was judged “good”.
The assessment comes after the standard of care offered was downgraded by inspectors in a report released earlier this year.
The psychiatric hospital, which offers round-the-clock care for people who have been abusing drink or drugs, is run by a group of nurses, therapists and counsellors, as well as a medically-qualified clinic director.
Patients are housed in a mix of single and shared bedrooms with communal sitting and dining areas, group therapy and meeting rooms.
Inspectors praised the service for having systems in place to assess the quality of care being provided and for closely monitoring the health of patients undergoing detoxification.
It read: “Patients are often involved in group work while they are using the service.
“We saw the need to maintain each other’s confidentiality was discussed as part of the ground rules for being a member of the group.
“Patients also sign consent forms to give permission for information about them to be shared with other people.”
But the report called for improvements in the handling of archived records and said the clinic should ensure staff are given regular training on medication management.
In the previous examination released in February, the four areas were rated as “adequate” by HIS, apart from quality of information which received a grading of “good”.
The majority of recommendations made following that inspection have now been met.
A spokesman for the clinic said no one was available for comment yesterday.