Members of the public

Who we are and what we do

We are the national regulator for care services in Scotland. Care services cannot operate unless they are registered by us. We inspect services and evaluate the quality of care they deliver. We support improvement in individual services and across the care sector nationally.

Where care is not good enough, we can deal with complaints and carry out enforcement action.

Choosing a quality childminder

Finding the right childminder is a crucial decision for you and your family. The Care Inspectorate is here to provide you with the information and support you need to make an informed choice.

We regulate and inspect childminding services across Scotland to ensure they meet high standards of care, in line with the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC).

Who we inspect

We regulate and inspect care services in Scotland to make sure that they meet the right standards.

Find a care service

You can find the details of every registered care service in Scotland on our website. You can search by service name, location, service type and so on. You can also compare services. The information you will find about each service includes our quality evaluations and inspection reports, as well as any complaints and enforcements.

Scotland’s Health and Social Care Standards

The Health and Social Care Standards are relevant across all health and social care. Everyone is entitled to high-quality care and support tailored towards their particular needs and choices. That is why the Standards are focused on the experience of people using services and supporting their outcomes.

Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

If you believe that you have suffered abuse in a residential childcare setting, you can contact the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and share your experiences.

Contact the Inquiry’s witness support team to let them know if you are interested in talking about your experiences.

Read our inspection reports

Every time we inspect a service, we publish an inspection report. The report gives details of what we found and our evaluations of service quality.

Read our latest reports here.

Find reports for a specific service.

Raising a concern or complaint

Anyone can come to us with concerns or complaints about registered care services, or about us. Listening to your concerns and investigating complaints helps us make a real difference to care services and the way we work.

Joint inspections of services across local areas

Jointly with other regulators and scrutiny bodies, we inspect a range of partnerships responsible for the overall delivery of health, social care and social work services across local areas. These partnership arrangements are generally between local authorities, NHS boards and other bodies such as police. For example, there are community planning partnerships, health and social care partnerships and adult protection partnerships.

Read our joint inspection reports here.

Get involved with the Care Inspectorate

We believe we can make care better by working with people who have personal experience of those services. Volunteers get involved in many different areas of our work, including inspection. We are looking for people with a personal experience of care. So, if you have used a care service, or cared for someone close who used a care service, you could be just who we're looking for.

Bogus callers

Occasionally, we receive reports of bogus callers, calling or visiting services and claiming to be inspectors from the Care Inspectorate. You can be sure that our inspectors are who they say they are by carrying out some simple identity checks or calling us on 0345 600 9527.

Care Opinion

Care Opinion is an independent website where people who use services, and their carers, can share their experiences of UK health and social care services.

Read people’s stories or share yours here.

Tell Us Once

HM Government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ (TUO) is a free death notification service. It’s a difficult time when someone has died. Therefore, TUO can support bereaved citizens to notify multiple local and central government services via just one contact – Because your time matters.

Find out more at the Tell Us Once website.

Watch their video on reporting a death using the Tell Us Once service.