Inspections
Infection prevention and control (IPC) standards published
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has published new IPC standards that apply to health and adult social care settings
The standards will act as a key component in the drive to reduce the risk of infections in health and social care in Scotland. They will support services to quality assure their IPC practice and approaches, and the IPC principles set out in the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual.
The Care Inspectorate will take account of the standards in our inspection and regulation of adult and older people’s care services including care homes.
The standards can be found here.
Our approach to inspection and self-evaluation
In consultation with the social care sector, we have developed a self-evaluation and quality framework model based on the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Standards. We have used this model to develop a suite of quality frameworks for different service types.
Our inspectors use quality frameworks to evaluate the quality of care during inspections and improvement planning.
All our frameworks are available to download from the publications and statistics area or on The Hub.
The frameworks replace our previous practice of inspecting against themes and statements. Inspectors will look select a number of quality indicators from a number of key questions to look at.
Framework structure
The frameworks better reflect the Health and Social Care Standards and provides more transparency about what we expect.
They set out key questions about the difference a care service makes to people’s wellbeing, and the quality of the elements that contribute to that. These include:
- How well do we support people’s wellbeing?
- How good is our leadership
- How good is our staff team?
- How good is our setting?
- How well is our care and support planned?
Under each key question, there are three or four quality indicators, covering specific areas of practice. Each quality indicator has illustrations of what ‘very good’ quality would look like, and what ‘weak’ quality would look like. These illustrations are drawn from the Health and Social Care Standards but are not checklists or definitive descriptions. They are designed to help people understand the level of quality we are looking for.
A sixth question, ‘What is our overall capacity for improvement?’ is included in the framework to help care services in planning their improvement journey.
Each quality indicator includes a scrutiny and improvement toolbox. This includes examples of how we might evidence the quality of care provided. It also contains links to practice documents that will help services in their own improvement journey.
Key questions added as a result of Covid-19
In order to robustly assess arrangements to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, our inspections are placing particular focus on infection prevention and control, wellbeing and staffing in care settings.
We have developed a key question to augment our frameworks. We have done this to meet the duties placed on us by the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No. 2) Act and subsequent guidance that we must evaluate infection prevention and control and staffing.
This means carry out targeted inspections that are short, focused and carried out with colleagues from Health Improvement Scotland and Health Protection Scotland, to assess care and support during the Covid-19 pandemic. We will continue to put the wellbeing for people experiencing care at the heart of our inspections.
This additional key question has been added to our frameworks for:
- Care homes for children and young people and school care accommodation (special residential schools)
- Mainstream boarding schools and school hostels
- Secure accommodation
Self-evaluation
The quality frameworks help services evaluate themselves. Self-evaluation is central to continuous improvement. It enables care settings to reflect on what they are doing so they can recognise what they do well and identify what they need to do better. We have published a guide to self-evaluation to support services in their improvement journey and a range of toolkits to support services undertake self-evaluation.
Where can I find out more?
The quality frameworks and key question 7's (KQ7s), and our inspection leaflet gives more information.
Alternatively, you can contact your inspector, call us on 0345 600 9527 or email enquiries@careinspectorate.gov.scot.
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Enforcements
Enforcement is an essential and powerful element of the Care Inspectorates' core responsibilities and it is central to our aim of protecting service users and bringing about an improvement in the quality of care services.
We have two different types of notices that can be served against care services.
Condition Notices
A condition notice is served when the Care Inspectorate needs to change the conditions of registration of a service in order for it to operate. If a provider wants to change their conditions of registration, they can apply for a variation. An application for variation is not treated as “enforcement”. Read more about variations here.
Improvement Notice
An improvement notice might be served when we have sufficient concerns about a service. The provider must make the required improvements within a given timescale. If not, we may pursue the cancellation of that service. Cancelling a service is rare and we work hard with services to ensure that this is the last resort.
Urgent Proceedings
If we believe that there is a serious and immediate risk to life, health or wellbeing, we can apply to the Sheriff Court for emergency cancellation of a service's registration or apply for changes to their conditions.
Click here to view/download the Enforcement Policy.
Read more in our Requiring care services in Scotland to improve leaflet.
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Notifications and record keeping
- Guidance on records you must keep and notifications you must make (early learning and childcare services, including childminders)
- Guidance on records you must keep and notifications you must make (children and young peoples services)
- Guidance on records you must keep and notifications you must make (adult services)
Large Scale Investigation Notifications
Since 2014, adult protection codes of practice have required that the Care Inspectorate is alerted to the occurrence of large scale investigations.
This is an expectation that is directed at Local Authorities and now, by extension, HSCPs.
Please notify us on the commencement of a large scale investigation here.
Please notify us of the completion of a large scale investigation here.
Notifications and record keeping
By law all services must tell us immediately if certain events take place.
- Accidents, incidents or injuries
- Outbreak of infectious disease
- Death of person using a care service
- Allegations of abuse
- Significant equipment breakdown
- Allegation of misconduct by a provider or employee
- Criminal convictions resulting in unfitness of a manager
- A provider becoming unfit
- Absence of manager
- Planned refurbishment/alteration/extension of premises
- Change of registration details
- Person living at the registered premises
We have produced comprehensive guidance on the records you must keep and the notifications you must make (click on the links below).
- Notification on controlled drugs
- Changes to notifications of deaths of looked after children and deaths of young people in continuing care or receiving aftercare provision
- Deaths of looked after children
- Deaths of young people receiving aftercare provision
- Deaths of young people in continuing care
- Learning reviews
- Initial Case Reviews (ICRS) & Significant Case Reviews (SCRS) - Adults
- Serious Incident Reviews
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Annual returns
This year’s annual returns have now closed. We would like to thank everyone who submitted their annual return to us by the deadline Sunday, 2 March 2025. The information you have provided will help us plan, inform and carry out our inspections and improvement work.
Each year, we ask service providers to complete an annual return to help us plan, inform and carry out our inspections and improvement work.
We also publish a number of annual statistical publications and share some of the information with other organisations, such as the Scottish Social Services Council and the Scottish Government.
The intelligence we gather through annual returns helps us target our improvement activity and support within social care. It is a great source of baseline data across a variety of health and wellbeing indicators which we use to identify, drive and track improvement, for example infection control, nutrition and the recruitment and retention of staff. The data also helps us to identify trends and topics by both geographical area or service type, so that we can see where best to focus our improvement support work, for example, improvement workshops or new resources and guidance for care services across the sector.
All service types must complete their annual returns electronically, using our eForms system. We would encourage services to check their eForms account to make sure that their email address is up to date to ensure they are notified when the annual returns go live.
Even inactive services must submit an annual return.
Some services have told us it can be difficult to get in touch with us during our usual contact centre opening hours. This year, our contact centre will be opening late, between 16:00-19:00, on the below days to help services with queries about annual returns. There will be limited staff available, so we ask for your patience while we answer your calls.
- Thursday 23 January
- Thursday 30 January
- Thursday 6 February
- Thursday 13 February
- Thursday 20 February
- Thursday 27 February
Our contact centre will still be open Monday to Friday 09:00 – 16:00. Call us on 0345 600 9527.
We no longer automatically downgrade services for failing to submit an annual return. This is because we do not believe that non-submission is necessarily a reflection of poor quality of service. We will, however, continue to publish details about submission or non-submission of annual returns within inspection reports. We also reserve the right to make a formal requirement relating to submission of an annual return, or in cases of serious or persistent non-compliance, to issue an improvement notice under s62 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, requiring its submission.
Please note that where the manager of the service has changed, you must formally notify the Care Inspectorate of the correct details. This can be done using our online digital portal.
Related documents
If you have any questions about the annual returns, please read our frequently asked questions.
Find out what has changed in the 2024 annual return.
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