Update - June 2024

Published: 03 June 2024

What we have been doing since our last briefing in January 2024 

We have continued to work alongside the four areas that came forward to be part of more detailed work: 

  • Aberdeen city 
  • Dundee city
  • Dumfries and Galloway 
  • Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles) 

In January we reviewed a sample of children’s social work’s records. Across the four areas we read a total of 117 records. This helped us to better understand the effectiveness of children’s assessments, plans and reviews in ensuring children received the help they needed at the right time.     

Between February and March, we visited each of the four areas and met with children, young people, their families, carers and the staff who help them. We had the privilege of hearing directly from people who receive services about the difference these made to their lives and what could be improved. We also reviewed feedback provided by children and young people through our electronic survey. We visited social work teams, social care services and schools to hear from social work staff and other professionals who support disabled children and young people. During these visits we learned more about what was working well for children and young people and what was more challenging. 

We held five focus groups involving representatives from the four areas. This helped practitioners to reflect together about the areas of strengths and for improvement across the country.   

We are very grateful to everyone who took the time to speak with us or complete our surveys. We would also like to extend our thanks to everyone who facilitated our interactions with children and young people. We saw how important it was to the children and young people to receive support from people they knew well and who cared for them.   

In May, we met with representatives from the four areas individually to provide verbal feedback and share our reflections on our time spent in their area. We also shared their individual results for their record reading review and staff survey with them.    

Next steps 

We are now working on our national overview report, which we plan to publish in August 2024. We are working alongside colleagues within our organisation to provide accessible formats, including a short video animation to highlight our key messages. 

The published report will be available on the Care Inspectorate’s website. 

If you have any questions for the review team, they can be contacted via email on: 

dcyp@careinspectorate.gov.scot 

We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this review. 

Downloads: 2232

Update - September 2023

Published: 05 September 2023

What we have done so far

Following the notification of the thematic review, we issued a survey to social work teams across Scotland.  By mid- august we had received responses from all 32 local authority areas.  We are now looking at the information from the survey.  This is helping us to build a picture about social work’s contribution to how well disabled children and young people’s needs are assessed, planned for, and met.

We have been reading national reports and research to find out what disabled children and young people have already said what is important to them, and about their experiences of support.

Conversations with our key stakeholders, are helping us to develop our ideas about our engagement approaches with children and young people.  We are keen that we explore opportunities to ensure that our approach is rights based, accessible and is inclusive.

We will use all the information we have gathered so far to help us identify our focus during the next stage.

Next steps

Four areas have volunteered to help us better understand children and young people’s experiences and the difference social work services are making to their lives.  We are pleased to welcome them to this next stage of the review.  The areas are:

  • Aberdeen city
  • Dundee city
  • Dumfries and Galloway
  • Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)

We will be working with these social work teams from September 2023 to March 2024.

More information can be found on our website here.

If you have any questions for the review team, they can be contacted via email on:
dcyp@careinspectorate.gov.scot

We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this review.

Downloads: 2906

Variations around the skills mix in care homes

Published: 22 September 2015

Care homes for older people

The Care Inspectorate is aware of the challenges faced by some care providers on the recruitment and retention of nurses in the care sector.  Some care providers have approached us about reconfiguring their staffing model, to develop the role of their senior care workers so that they can deploy their nurses more effectively and in some cases reduce reliance on agency nursing in order to promote more stable staff teams.

The Care Inspectorate recognises and strongly supports the role that nurses play in many care homes, particularly in providing clinical leadership and planning care for residents.  We are also keen to support innovation in care that reflects changing needs and demands, where this improves outcomes for service users.

Where care homes for older people are proposing to vary the skills mix in a care home, and this would require a change to staffing schedules, we will consider proposals through our registration variations process.  We expect such proposals to improve the quality of care for residents.  We will ask care homes to provide us with specific information to support the variation request.

If agreed, we may place specific time-limited conditions on the registration of the service.  We will expect any such initiative to be  evaluated by the care home provider, before consideration is given to confirming these arrangements as permanent.  Where a variation is agreed, the next inspection of the care home is likely to look at all quality themes, even if the home has been performing at a high level for some time.

Prior to submitting your variation, the registration team will be able to advise on what actions you should be taking to support your application.  This should include engagement with local commissioners, as well as with residents and relatives and the development of a plan to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of your initiative.  Please note, cost saving will not be an acceptable reason for application.

Downloads: 25325

Visiting

Published: 15 June 2022

Test

Downloads: 2236

Week by week guide

Published: 16 August 2022

Our joint inspections of services for children at risk of harm last for around 22 weeks in total from the notification letter being received by the partnership being inspected to the report being published. The actual timespan may be longer if the period of the inspection includes school or public holidays.

Each inspection begins with a preparation stage, is then conducted over three phases, and concludes with a reporting stage. More information about what happens during each of these is available here:

We will share information about the scope and process of the inspection and the rationale for this, during scheduled meetings with partnership representatives at the start of and during the inspection. We will discuss which scrutiny activities will best help us to clarify any areas of uncertainty.

 Capture

 

Downloads: 3769

Why your annual returns are so important

Published: 05 December 2016

Why your annual returns are so important

Every year in January and February, we ask care service providers to complete an annual return. It asks for a great deal of information about your service and the people who use it. It is important to know why you are asked for this information, and what we do with it. 

First and foremost, the information you provide in the annual return helps us understand your service. This means inspectors are able to plan and prepare for effective inspections that are focused appropriately.

Not only is the annual return important for planning and focusing inspections, but the information you also give provides a national picture, which can help the us and other partner organisations in a number of ways.

Annual returns will be available between 6 January and 2 March 2025 and should be completed online through our eForms system. Services can log in to their Care Inspectorate eForms account from any computer connected to the internet. The closing date includes an extension of two weeks on our usual six-week deadline.

Even inactive services must submit an annual return.

If a service was registered on or after 1 October 2024, it should try to complete an annual return this year. Although it is not mandatory for these services, any information supplied will be used by the Care Inspectorate and Scottish Government. The information entered this year will automatically appear in the December 2025 annual return and only information that has changed will need to be entered.

Benchmarks and comparisons for inspectors 

Inspectors can compare a service they are looking at with national averages to identify potential issues. For example, if the inspector is preparing to inspect a service with higher staff turnover than average, when they inspect, the inspector might look at the impact this could have had on the quality of care and outcomes for people using that service.

Publishing statistics

We also publish statistical reports of some of the annual returns data.  We also use the annual return data to inform many of our other publications such as:

National policy makers (the Scottish Government) can use these summaries and publications to shape and evaluate national policies and providers can see how their service compares with other services.

Supporting improvement

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.

Reducing duplication and sharing information

We also share information with other public bodies to reduce duplication and the costs of data collection for both the taxpayer and the people providing data.  For example, anonymised staffing information is shared with the Scottish Social Services Council, so they can develop intelligence about the workforce without having to collect additional data from care services.

If you need help accessing the annual return, you can call our contact centre on 0345 600 9527 or read our frequently asked questions (to follow).

Downloads: 22975

Workforce registration with SSSC

Published: 13 March 2015

In April 2009, the Scottish Government passed Statutory Regulations about a phased programme of compulsory registration of key groups of social services workers in: residential child care, day care services for children, adult residential care, care at home and other support services and school care accommodation.  The Regulations state that once required registration commences for any group of workers, employers/providers must only employ registered workers in relevant posts and that any new recruits to these posts must achieve registration within six months of commencing employment.

This means that service providers will be committing an offence if, after the date of required registration, they employ or continue to employ, a worker in a service who is not registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) or another relevant regulatory body e.g. the General Teaching Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The Care Inspectorate has to the responsibility for enforcing required registration on behalf of Government.  Where workers are not registered appropriately, the Care Inspectorate may make requirements, reflect non-registration in inspection reports and grades and even take enforcement action that could result in the cancellation of registration for care services.  The Care Inspectorate may also take steps to report the service provider to the Procurator Fiscal if necessary.

The Care Inspectorate will contact services on an ongoing basis as SSSC registration is required for parts of the social care workforce.  In addition, providers will be asked for information about their employees’ registration status through our annual return and this will inform our scrutiny activities such as inspection with each service.

When do I need to register?

Last Application date

Date of required registration

Workers in care home services for adults

Support workers

30 September 2014

30 September 2015

Workers in day care of children services

Workers in housing support services

Managers

31 July 2013

31 January 2014

Supervisors

To be announced

2017

Support workers

To be announced

To be announced

Workers in care at home services

Supervisors

To be announced

2017

Support workers

To be announced

2020

Remember, the Care Inspectorate does not register members of the workforce.  Any questions about registration of the workforce should be directed to the SSSC (www.sssc.uk.com) or by calling their helpline on 0345 60 30 891.

Guidance for social care workers applying can be found here.

Guidance for verifying and endorsing applications can be found here

 

Downloads: 46173

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