World Hand Hygiene Day – 05 May 2026

Blog by Hayley Reid, senior quality improvement advisor

The 5th of May marks World Hand Hygiene Day, initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009 as part of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign. This global initiative provides a platform for hospitals, care homes, social care services, and early learning and childcare (ELC) settings to raise awareness and take meaningful action to improve hand hygiene practices. 

World Hand Hygiene Day offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect on observed practice trends, audit findings, and the environmental and cultural challenges that influence how effectively hand hygiene is performed across care settings.


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Care Home Improvement Programme - applications now open

We are inviting care homes for adults and older people in the Highland and Moray areas to apply for the third cohort of the Care Home Improvement Programme (CHIP).

Who:        Twenty adult and older people care homes from the Highland and Moray areas

When:      July to November 2026

Where:     Two in-person events in Inverness and four online events on Microsoft Teams

Participants will undertake an improvement project during the programme, to support improvement in an area that will make a positive impact in their care home. Participants will be allocated an improvement adviser who will provide dedicated support throughout the programme.


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New website launch – careinspectorate.scot

Next month, we’ll be launching our new Care Inspectorate website at careinspectorate.scot

The new website will replace our current corporate website and The Hub. It will bring everything together in one place and make it easier to find information about social care and social work in Scotland, guidance, updates, and improvement resources.


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Draft self-evaluation for improvement guides

We have developed new self-evaluation guides for all services, including a full reference version and a shorter summary version. These will replace ‘Self-evaluation for improvement - your guide’ and the previous guidance published with each set of self-evaluation tools. The guides bring all the information together in one place and include more detail on areas of the process that services have told us they find challenging. The summary guide gives the overarching structure, while the full guide can be used when extra detail or examples would be helpful.


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Statement on Abbotsford Care, Headwell House, Dunfermline

A spokesperson for the Care Inspectorate said: "An inspection has identified significant concerns about the quality of care experienced by residents of Abbotsford Care, Headwell House in Dunfermline.


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