Scottish social care watchdog promises to make services 'transparent'

Scotland’s social care watchdog, the Care Inspectorate, has announced a drive to provide better information about poorly performing care services, as well as highlight those services that demonstrate leading-edge practice.

The body, which inspects and regulates some 14,000 care homes and home care providers and other vital care services as well as nurseries, says those that fall below adequate standards and don’t improve sufficiently fast will be highlighted on the Care Inspectorate website as well as those that regularly excel.

Every care service in Scotland is regularly inspected by the Care Inspectorate, mostly unannounced in 2012/13, and is graded on a scale from 1 (unsatisfactory) to 6 (excellent). Results for 2012/13 showed that 4.8% of registered services scored 3 (adequate) or less, an increase of 1% on the previous year.

Where services cause concern, the watchdog inspects much more frequently, to ensure care users are protected. The Care Inspectorate also has legal powers to enforce change, and close a service where necessary.

Care Inspectorate chief executive Annette Bruton said: “Almost everyone in Scotland will use a care service at some point, and the vast majority perform well. Our specialist inspectors rate more than 80 per cent as good, very good or excellent.

“We already publish all our inspection reports online, but now want to be more open and transparent by highlighting services that cause us concern or impress us.

“As well as demanding fast action when services need to improve – or closing them when they don’t – we have a duty to inform the public about what we find on inspection.

“Everyone in Scotland has the right to compassionate, high quality care which meets their needs and respects their rights, and everyone has the right to know how care services are performing.

“Easy to find and reliable information about services that they and their loved-ones use, inform people’s choices.

“We also want to flag up really good practice where services are leading the way towards higher standards for everyone.”

This initiative marks the second year of operation for the Care Inspectorate, which replaces the work of three predecessor inspection bodies.