We are developing care surveys that reflect the Health and Social Care Standards. These will replace the old care standards questionnaires (CSQs) and link to our quality frameworks for care services.

We want to include the views of people who experience care, as well as their relatives, friends and carers in our scrutiny and improvement work and these will surveys help us do that.

They have a stronger emphasis on hearing about people’s experiences and outcomes and we hope this will enable more people to tell us about their care. We want people to be able to engage much more meaningfully with our inspections, in the way that suits them best. We designed these surveys to support this in a flexible way. 

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Online surveys (Microsoft Forms)

Throughout the year, we will send electronic survey links directly to managers of care services. We ask that these links are sent to the relevant key people within your service who use and support you to deliver care. We anticipate this will be an annual request. 

There are four different electronic surveys:

• people who experience care
• service staff
• relatives and carers
• and, where appropriate, external professionals such as district nurses and G.P.s.

We appreciate some people, especially those experiencing care and some relatives and carers, may need support to provide their feedback and we appreciate any support you can provide to enable them to participate. Advocacy services in your local area may be able to support this. 

Please email these survey links to the appropriate groups of people. If your staff are supporting people to complete the surveys, then please give them the most appropriate link for the person giving the feedback.

People who experience care

People who experience care can complete the survey by:  

• completing the form that will be issued to the service and then returning this in the freepost envelope provided.
• completing the survey online.
  

We have also produced sentiment and response cards to support people in care homes to complete the survey. The images on the sentiment cards mirror the first section and the response cards help people to be clearer in their answers to the questions in the survey.

• Sentiment card
• Response card
• Guidance on supporting people with the survey (service version)

People can choose to do as much of the survey as they are able to. Some people may wish to focus on the first page with images that describe how they feel, and others may be happy to complete the whole survey.

How all services will receive batch surveys

We will send a batch of care surveys and freepost envelopes.  

For care homes, there will also be a set of sentiment and response cards sent to your service with the first batch of surveys.  

Downloadable version  

Services can also download a copy of the survey from the links below. Please make sure you quote the services registration number (CS number) and name of service on the front page of the document so we can send this to the correct inspector. The CS number will be on the services registration certificate which is displayed in the service. 

• Care homes for adults and older people survey download (PDF)
• Care at home/housing support survey download (PDF)

Once completed please return these to:

                Care Inspectorate
                Compass House
                11 Riverside Drive
                Dundee
                DD1 4NY

If you need the survey in an alternative format, such as a different language or easy read, please give us a call on 0345 600 9527 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.