Inspectorate report 20% increase in care complaints

A 20% surge in complaints about care services was a notable statistic as the Care Inspectorate published its annual report yesterday.

The report shows that the number of people who contacted the Care Inspectorate with a concern about care services increased in the past year to 3,788 compared to 3,237 the year before.

Overall, the number of care services in Scotland which received good, very good or excellent grades for the quality of care and support they provided remained at 92%.

In the past year, the Inspectorate focused its inspection work on services which presented the most risk, and also increased the intensity of inspections. That saw it inspect 7,825 care services, with the majority of those inspections unannounced.

Paul Edie, chair of the Care Inspectorate said: “It is a time of considerable change across health and social care and it is important to ensure that there is a robust and rigorous inspection process in place.

“The focus of our scrutiny must be on the outcomes experienced by people who rely on care services.”

Annette Bruton, Chief Executive, Care Inspectorate added: “Almost everyone will use a care service at some point in their life and the public have a right to know how these services are performing.

“Where standards are not up to scratch, we will continue to seek improvement where possible and use our legal powers to protect vulnerable people from harm wherever necessary.

“Whilst the majority of care services are good, we must continue to ensure that we help improve those that are below standards, both across children’s and older people’s services.

“I am determined to strike the right balance between regulation, inspection, assurance and improvement.”

The full report is available here: cinsp.in/annualreport2013-2014