Good progress has been made on improving services for children and young people in the Outer Hebrides, inspectors have said.

Inspectors said partners had made significant progress in working together to gather and study information about improvements in the wellbeing of children and young people. As a result they were now better able to plan and agree priorities.

Partners had also made significant progress in developing a better understanding of the needs of children and young people in the Outer Hebrides Community Planning Partnership to make sure the right services were in place.

Today’s findings follow a joint inspection in 2016 which looked at how well services worked together to improve the lives of children, young people and their families. That inspection made five important recommendations for improvement.

Now, after a return visit, inspectors say they are pleased to note the considerable progress made to meet the recommendations, and have today published the results of formal review of the community planning partnership’s progress.

Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “I welcome the fact that partners have made considerable progress in addressing all five areas for improvement identified in the inspection report published in January 2016.

“The voices of care experienced children and young people are increasingly influencing policy and practice, and this is important to ensure that services meet the needs of the people who access them, and take account of their rights and wishes.

“We also found improved collaborative working at all levels across partner organisations, with staff committed to working hard to make further improvements to enable better outcomes for children, young people and their families.

“Overall, we are satisfied with the action partners have taken to strengthen and improve services for children and young people.”

The progress review is available here.

• Services for children and young people in the Outer Hebrides - Progress report

The Care Inspectorate, in partnership with Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary carried out a joint inspection of services for children and young people in the Outer Hebrides Community Planning Partnership in 2015. The report was published in January 2016 and identified five key areas for improvement.

These were:

• Ensure accurate and up to date information about services is easily available to GPs, health visitors, social workers and other staff as well as to families.
• Work together to improve data gathering across partners to provide measures of improving trends through prevention and early intervention, outcomes for children and young people and the life chances of vulnerable children and young people.
• Undertake a joint strategic assessment of needs to ensure the right balance of universal, targeted and specialist services are in place to meet the current and emerging needs of children, young people and families in Eilean Siar.
• Urgently address the critical shortage of health visitors.
• Address the current barriers to effective partnership working at a strategic level.

The Care Inspectorate, in partnership with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, formally reviewed the community planning partnership’s progress on each of the identified areas for improvement in May 2017.