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Covid -19 frequently asked questions

Published: 19 March 2020

As information, guidance and practice about Covid-19 is becoming established and less subject to rapid change, we are no longer maintaining the Covid-19 FAQs or the Covid-19 compendium. For key information, visit our Covid-19 information pages and the following links.

Guidance for Adult social care

Guidance for early learning, school aged childcare and childminder settings

Guidance for Children and Young People (CYP)

Other useful links for all social care settings

Downloads: 58628
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Joint inspection of services for children and young people

Published: 13 March 2015

What do we do?

In 2017, the Scottish Government’s child protection improvement programme set out a vision for a child protection system in Scotland that places the wellbeing of children at the heart of everything it does. Scottish Ministers asked the Care Inspectorate to work with scrutiny partners to take a more focused look at children and young people in need of care and protection.

Our joint inspections therefore take account of the experiences and outcomes of such children and young people by looking at the services provided for them by community planning partnerships in each local authority area. This includes the work of health visitors, school nurses, teachers, doctors, social workers, police officers and lots of other people who work with children, young people and their families.

What is our approach?

When we engaged with children and young people about the focus of inspections, their most important message to us was that children and young people should be enabled to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships. They want to be able to build trust through consistent relationships with adults and they want to be supported to maintain contact with those people who are most important in their lives. Our approach therefore looks carefully at how well the system is organised to ensure that they can experience continuity in their care and develop and sustain lasting relationships.

We believe that staff who are well trained and supported, and who feel valued and empowered, are more likely to be able to provide high quality services for children and young people. We will therefore explore how well staff are valued, supported and equipped to carry out their task. We know from our inspection findings that partners recognise the critical importance of achieving high standards in assessment and planning to ensure the safety of, and improve outcomes for, children and young people. However, we also know that performance in assessment and planning is not as consistently strong across the country as it needs to be and we will look at the extent to which robust quality assurance and high quality reflective supervision are in place.

Our inspections will also consider the appropriate use of legal measures to achieve security and stability in the lives of vulnerable children. Strong collaborative leadership is essential within the challenging context of providing high quality public services in an integrated landscape. Inspections will include a focus on the role played by staff who work in adult services in protecting children and young people and supporting sustained positive change for them and their families.

We will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative leadership, including leadership of the child protection committee and its relationship with chief officers, and we will identify any barriers that affect continued improved performance. We will look at how well leaders can demonstrate what difference they are, together, making to the lives of children in need of protection and those for whom they are corporate parents.

We started the current round of joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection in August 2018 and will continue to review and revise the approach over the course of these inspections.

How do we do it?

Our inspections last for a number of months. We collect information about the area before we visit it. This helps us to understand what happens there and what is affecting the way that services are being provided.

During the inspection, a team of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and other partner agencies visit the area over two separate weeks.

This gives us the chance to find out if children, young people and their families are getting the help that they need and if services are making a difference to their lives. To do this we:

  • speak with the staff
  • speak with children and young people and listen to their views
  • speak with parents and carers
  • read information about the children and young people.

What individual people tell us during inspection is confidential. Our reports do not include any information about them or their family, or anything that could identify them. However, we do have a duty to pass on information if there are concerns about someone’s safety.

After our inspection, we publish a report on our website about what we found for the area. Our inspection reports set out what works well and what could improve. We expect the community planning partnership to take action on any recommendations we make for improvements.

For more information about what happens during an inspection click here for The Guide.

How can you get involved?

What you think really matters. If we are inspecting your area, and you have experience of services, you may want to speak to us about the help that you have been getting.

We will offer a range of ways for you to give us feedback. As well as a survey we will arrange one-to-one discussions and group meetings. Our one-to-one discussions can take place in person, or we can contact you by phone or other ways such as Facetime or Skype.

If you give us information anonymously, we may not be able to get in contact with you if you raise concerns about your own safety or the safety of anyone else. If you have such concerns we would encourage you to contact your local authority and ask for their child protection or adult protection service. You can also contact Childline on 0800 1111. If we have any concerns about the safety of individuals we will share this with protection agencies.

Our inspection team also includes young inspection volunteers. These are young people aged 18 – 26 with experience of care services who help us with our inspections. If you are a young person, you can choose to speak with one of them and you can have a person to support you when you meet them. If you are a young person and want to know more about young inspection volunteers or how to get involved, click here to find out more.

 

Downloads: 55459
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Portal or eForms?

Published: 22 March 2021

We have moved a number of our forms from our eForms system to the new portal.  If you are wanting to notify us of a change to your service, the table below will advise what system to use. 

Our eForms system will continue to be used for annual returns and notifications, (the things you are required to tell us about,) as we continue our digital transformation programme.    

If you are require any assistance, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 0345 600 9527 Monday to Friday between 09:00 - 16:00 

Current eForm title

Complete on portal

Complete on existing eForm

Absence of a manager for more than 28 days

  

Yes

Accident

  

Yes

Allegation of abuse concerning a service user

  

Yes

Allegation of misconduct by provider or persons employed in the care service

  

Yes

Appointment of liquidators/receivers

  

Yes

Change of a manager

Yes

  

Change of a provider

Yes

  

Change of a service name

Yes

  

Change of committees or associations

Yes

  

Change of contact details

Yes

  

Change of a managers name

Yes

  

Change of ownership/change of officers

Yes

  

Change of a person’s who are partners

Yes

  

Change of premises

Yes

  

Change of a provider’s address

Yes

  

Change of a provider’s name

Yes

  

Change of a service address

Yes

  

Controlled drug medication incident

  

Yes

Death of a service provider

  

Yes

Death of a service user

  

Yes

Equipment breakdown having significant effect on the service

  

Yes

Incident

  

Yes

Increase or decrease in staff WTE by 10% (housing support, nurse agency, support service care at home only)

Yes

  

Injury to service user

  

Yes

Outbreak of infectious disease

  

Yes

Person living on premises becomes 16 years of age (C/M only)

  Yes

Person moves out/in to premises (C/M only)

Yes
 

Planned refurbishment or alteration or extension of premises

 
Yes

Proposed application to cancel the service

Yes

  

Provision of respite care (care home service only)

  

Yes

Unfitness of manager

  

Yes

Unfitness of provider – criminal offences

  

Yes

Unfitness of provider – financial

  

Yes
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Care surveys: How good is your care?

Published: 08 May 2019

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

 

 

Downloads: 52041
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Statistics and analysis

Published: 13 March 2015

We collect a wide range of statistical information about Scotland's care services.  We collect this to help us regulate services.  We also use this information to produce statistical overviews of the service types we regulate.  

We include data in our annual report and accounts, annual childcare statistics and the periodic, state-of-the-nation reports we produce.

Use the following links to find the publication you are looking for:

Childcare Statistics

Quarterly Statistical Summary Report

You can find our reports in our publications and statistics area.

Childcare Statistics

The Childcare Statistics detail the provision and use of registered daycare of children and childminding services in Scotland.  These are updated on an annual basis.  Below are links to the annual reports since 2010.

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report

The Quarterly Statistical Summary Report publication presents data on the number of registered care services, care service registrations and cancellations, complaints against care services received, registered and completed and quality theme grades all by care service type and or service sector. 

Full reports are available for download in Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) and Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) format.  In addition, the data tables are available in non-proprietary Comma Separated Values (CSV) format, individually.  The provision of the data in these formats is intended to facilitate its analysis and re-use.

All content is available under the Open Government License, unless otherwise stated.  More information on this license is available at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Our Intelligence Team compile and manage the information within the Quarterly Statistical Summary Report.

For help using this or any queries relating to its content or use then please email us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2024/25)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2024/25)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2023/24)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2023/24)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2023/24)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2023/24)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2022/23)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2022/23)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2022/23)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2022/23)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2021/22)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2021/22)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2021/22)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2021/22)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2020/21)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2020/21)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2020/21)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2020/21)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2019/20)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2019/20)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2019/20)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2019/20)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2018/19)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2018/19)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2018/19)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2018/19)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2017/18)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2017/18) - Revised

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 3 (2017/18)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 2 (2017/18)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 1 (2017/18)

Care Inspectorate Quarterly Statistical Summary Report - Quarter 4 (2016/17)

 

Downloads: 50205
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Datastore

Published: 13 March 2015

Our datastore is an online statistics tool for professionals who need to know about care services in Scotland.  It can provide information such as the number of care homes for older people in a particular area, or how many complaints have been upheld in the last year.

The Datastore provides information about the type and quality of care services in Scotland.  All current services (as at the date of the file) are included in the datastore, services that cancelled since the last update are removed and newly registered services are added each month.

The Datastore is available to download in two formats: an excel format which contains some pre-prepared pivot tables to assist with data analysis and a csv format which only contains the data.  These files are updated monthly.  There is also a separate document available which has definitions and notes on each of the data fields and it is recommended that this is used alongside the main data file as a reference.

All content is available under the Open Government License, unless otherwise stated.  More information on this license is available here.

Our Intelligence Team compile and manage the information within the Datastore.  For help using this or any queries relating to its content or use then please email us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

You can find the latest datastore here. 

 

Datastore, year-end, are available below:

Downloads: 49112
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Care...about physical activity

Published: 15 September 2015

The Care Inspectorate’s Care about Physical Activity (CAPA) programme ran from April 2017 to May 2020.

CAPA used an improvement approach to help care providers build physical activity and more movement into the daily lives of those they support. Sometimes within hospitals and care settings and even in our own homes, older people can get out of the habit of moving. This has negative consequences. Prolonged sitting leads to poor health such as frailty, falls and bone health. It also results in a poorer quality of life, depression and loneliness.

Moving more often during the day is of crucial importance to older people’s health and wellbeing. Increasing strength and balance in particular also helps older people to remain independent for longer, have a better quality of life and contributes to reduced falls.

A report, including detail, stories and information from the programme, can be accessed here. 

Managers and staff who work with older people from:

*Care at Home        *Day Care                         *Care Homes

*Sheltered Housing  *Very sheltered housing     *Respite care

across 19 Health & Social Care Partnership areas were involved with the CAPA programme (see map below)

capa map

Care professionals of all levels, local inspectors, designated partnership leads, integration leads, community and leisure groups and others came together at a variety of learning events (see red tags on the map). Those present were supported to understand how movement contributes to positive health and wellbeing.

Participants were supported to translate this understanding into developing their own movement ideas in their own settings with the people they knew well. Principles of Community Connection, Organisational Culture and Physical Activity Participation were examined from the viewpoint of each service.

For example, how could residents in a care home connect with others in their community in an area of interest. 

Some services used an established battery of physical and psychological tests/ questionnaires to track improvement and to contribute this data to the overall evaluation of the programme.

The CAPA programme complemented the work of adult service inspectors who support services to provide high quality care and support that is right for each person as part of their scrutiny and improvement role.

Independent research commissioned by the Care Inspectorate investigated psychological and physiological impacts of moving more often. The first phase evaluation found that older people involved in the programme have significantly improved their hand grip strength, their low leg strength, gradually increased their flexibility which improved mobility and levels of independence and significantly reduced their likelihood of falls as a result of moving more. People also experienced greater life satisfaction and felt less anxious.

Case studies 

Click on the selection of short films below showing what happened when care professionals found ways to promote more movement for those they support. These films can be used in team meetings or viewed by staff who are interested in finding new ideas to improve health and wellbeing.

Margaret's story (Care at Home)

Jacqui, a home carer, talks about how promoting movement is not as time consuming as they originally thought and how they are helping people receiving care at home to incorporate moving more into their daily lives

Jean's story (Day Care)

See how day care centre staff supported Jean to get out of her wheelchair. Jean started to walk, became more active, enjoyed increased energy levels and took up hobbies and passions.

Beth's story (Care Home)

Show this short film to spark discussion at team meetings. Listen to how Beth's quality of life improved when care home staff started something small.

Daphne's story (Care Home)

Care Home staff help Daphne incorporate more movement into her day which improves her health and wellbeing. Daphne’s son talks about the differences he has seen.

Care...about physical activity resources

We developed many resources together with care professionals and people experiencing care. Here is a selection that you might find useful:

'Make Every Move Count' pocket guide which helps staff understand that movement is about the small, simple things we can add into daily life that make a big difference to people experiencing care.

'Moving More Often' pocket guide. People living in their own homes have found these useful to identify what is important to them, give support to move more often every day, promote independence and the possibility of continuing to live at home.

Information for relatives This short factsheet encourages relatives and friends to support their older relative to move more often for positive health and wellbeing. Some services have found it useful to include this information in care plans, introductory packs or newsletters

My moving more improvement record People experiencing care use this to track their improvement over time. People have found this personal record motivating to use themselves, and a useful way to involve family and friends.

'Care...about physical activity' booklet outlines the original CAPA resource developed for care homes

More information and good practice stories can be found by searching further in the HUB

  • Go to your area of interest (e.g. Adults & Older People), then e.g. Care Homes for adults.

Under Topics choose ‘Type - creative and physical activity ‘, or ‘Resources - case studies’ to pull up resources including films that you might find useful.

 

Downloads: 47663
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Make Every Moment Count

Published: 12 October 2015

We have worked with a team of experts to develop the ‘Make Every Moment Count’ resource, an information leaflet which contains easy to read and simple guidance for everyone supporting older people in a care home or at home. 

The resource highlights how making the most of every moment can make a real difference to a person’s quality of life in simple but very meaningful ways. 

The five key messages are:

  • Get to know me
  • It's not just what you do... it's how you make me feel
  • Know what I can do and support me to do it
  • Help me feel comfortable, safe and secure in my surroundings
  • Remember little things all add up

By providing key messages on how to better understand an individual’s needs, values and lifestyle, the guide will help people working in care services to deliver an enhanced experience for Scotland’s older people.

Hear more about the resource in our video. 

To order copies of this information leaflet, poster or DVD, please call our enquiries team on 0345 600 9527 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

 

Some signposts to useful information

www.scie.org.uk

www.alzscot.org

www.scottishcare.corg

www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/dementia

www.dementia.stir.ac.uk

www.equalityhumanrights.com

www.faithinolderpeople.org.uk

www.ageuk.org.uk/scotland/

www.napa-activities.co.uk/

http://www.nmhdu.org.uk/silo/files/lets-respect-toolkit-for-care-homes-.pdf

www.dementiarights.org

www.bupa.co.uk

http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/home/index.html

http://www.active-ageing-events.org.uk/home/index.html

Actively Engaged

 

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