A REHAB facility in Halstead has been criticised by the Care Quality Commission after failing to meet legal requirements.

Sanctuary Lodge, in Hedingham Road, Halstead, was criticised by the CQC after an inspection in November last year when it identified regulations not being met. The health and social care regulator then issued warning notices.

Founder Eytan Alexander appealed against some decisions, but after an inspection two months ago the CQC has again said improvements were needed.

A report published last Monday said: “Risk assessments were not accurate and up to date.

“Medicines management processes were complicated and unsafe. We found 24 medication errors within the month’s period prior to inspection.

“We found two incidents of missing medication that staff had not reported through the incident reporting process.

“Managers did not always investigate incidents thoroughly and they did not identify lessons learned from incidents.

“Staff were not supervised in line with the provider’s policy.

“The provider had not taken action to resolve issues identified in clinical audits. Staff identified risk assessments were not being updated.”

The home can help 24 people through detox and rehabilitation including drugs, mental health and gambling.

Mr Alexander said one manager had resigned and had been replaced. He said: “Most medication errors were miscounts. There were no overdoses.

“Risk assessments were being done in multi-disciplinary documents and the team were aware, but they were not transferred over to a risk assessment.

“But we are exceptionally pleased with the new manager and he has got the clinical gov- ernance where it needs to be.”

The report said: “Staff treated clients with dignity, kind- ness, and respect. Clients told us that staff were compassionate, understood their needs and the barriers [to] their recovery.”