The Care Inspectorate has today published a report on complaints about care services in Scotland between 2014 and 2018.

The report shows that while the overall quality of care services in Scotland remains consistently high, the number of complaints received by the scrutiny and improvement body has increased over the period.

Peter Macleod, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “We know from our inspections that the majority of care services in Scotland perform well, and that people generally experience good quality, compassionate care which meets their needs, protects their rights and promotes their choices.

“However, where things are not good enough it is important that services improve, quickly.

“Our complaints procedure allows people who experience care, their friends and families, and others, to raise with us concerns they have about care services in Scotland.

“This statistical report on complaints examines the trends in complaints received and investigated over the last four years with a particular focus on the year 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018.

“Today’s report shows that since 2014/15 we have received over 4,000 complaints about care services each year.

“Although levels of complaints received have risen over this period, this is not necessarily an indicator that quality of care is in decline. Comparing 2014/15 to 2017/18, the percentage of services graded good, very good or excellent in all quality themes has remained consistently high at 87% and 89% respectively. This may be attributable to the increased awareness of our complaints process and of the standards of care they should expect.”

Care services operating in Scotland must be registered with the Care Inspectorate and there are currently almost 13,300 services registered.

Most complaints received (45%) over the period were made by friends, relatives or carers of a person who experiences the care service.

The majority of the 1,435 complaints that were investigated in 2017/18 were upheld (56% of completed investigations).

Care homes account for 47% of the total number of complaints investigated – a total of 3,201 completed investigations over the last four years. Over the last four years, 21% of the complaints investigated were about daycare of children services, 13% about care at home services and a further 8% were about childminders.

Of the complaints completed in 2017/18, just under a quarter of all areas of complaint were about general health and welfare issues in a service, 18% were about specific healthcare concerns, and a further 15% related to staffing concerns.

The report is available here: http://bit.ly/complaints-statistics