Volunteer inspectors to be recruited across Scotland's care services

Scotland’s social care watchdog, the Care Inspectorate, is looking to volunteer inspectors as a means of keeping care standards high and exposing those services that produce poor practice.

Members of the public who have first-hand experience of care services are being encouraged to volunteer, with the regulator keen to see service users and official inspectors collaborate more in order to protect the rights of people with care needs into the future.

Minister for public health, Michael Matheson, welcomes the incentive, saying: “Almost everyone in Scotland will use a care service at some point in their life and we all want to make sure care services are performing well.

“It is essential that we have a really rigorous inspection regime that spots problems early.

“I am delighted that the Care Inspectorate is involving people who have personal experience of care in inspections, as they are best placed to truly understand it.

“I strongly encourage more people to get involved, sign up and use their experience to help make care for others become truly outstanding.”

Setting out the Inspectorate’s goals, chief executive Annette Bruton comments: “We inspect care and social work services to make sure they are high quality and meet the needs of the people who use them.

“We believe we can make care better by working with people who have personal experience of those services.

“Our inspectors are experts by professional training and qualifications, but we want experts by experience too.

“We’re looking for people with a personal experience of care.

“So, if you have used a care service, or cared for someone close who has used a care service, you could be just who we’re looking for. “You don’t have to have qualifications – your personal experience gives you a unique insight into care.”

Inspection volunteer Linda Riley explains why members of the public can make a further contribution to that made by professionals, claiming that, as an observer, “my eyes will follow a different path from the Care Inspectorate”.

She continues. “I will notice that no one is in the garden, that the television is on too loud and that no one is watching it, no one is being spoken to, the people are not dressed in the right way, on the other hand I saw a lovely picture the other week of a man beaming all over his face with his family around him. That was the sort of picture I am looking for.”