Scotland toughens up care home inspection regime

Scottish care homes will get at least one unannounced inspection a year, under plans to toughen up scrutiny of services announced today by health secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

The change, which will also apply to other personal care services, means the best performing services will see a doubling in the frequency of inspections from once every two years, though higher-risk care homes already face twice yearly inspections.

“I believe that the arrangements in place for the regulation and inspection of care homes are fundamentally robust. However I have also been clear that there are aspects of the care regime in Scotland that are worth further consideration,” said Sturgeon.

Her proposals mirror plans from the Care Quality Commission to double the minimum inspection frequency for adult services in England to once a year, which is dependent on extra government cash.

Sturgeon added that “appropriate resources” will be given to support more frequent inspections by Social Care and Social Work Inspection Scotland, which she said would now be known as the Care Inspectorate.

In a statement today, Sturgeon also updated the Scottish Parliament on the situation regarding the break-up of Southern Cross. She said new operators had been identified for all but two Southern Cross homes in Scotland and the process of re-registering them with the inspectorate had begun. The other two homes are owned as well as run by Southern Cross, and separate arrangements will be made for them.

She also signalled a toughening up of the financial regulation of care services to prevent services being affected by the failure of private companies, saying she was holding talks with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) and other interested parties on the issue.

Sturgeon added: “This is not the end of our work and over the next months I will set out my plans for the integration of health and social care for older people, work on self directed support and further work on quality and standards of care.”.

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