At the end of March 2016 we issued our Excellence in Care 2 leaflet which detailed the changes to inspection from April 2016 and those planned for 1 July 2016.  We sent a copy of this to all care services in Scotland. 

As highlighted in the leaflet, from 1 July 2016, the Care Inspectorate will look more closely at outcomes for people who use care services, and so will only report and grade on the quality themes: individual quality statements will no longer be assessed.  Childminders will continue to be inspected using our current methodology.

We will also introduce a new-style inspection report to help give the public the information they need to choose services for themselves and their loved ones.  This follows a public consultation which indicated that our reports were too long and not user-friendly.

Services that are performing at good, or better, where there are no concerns or ongoing complaints, will receive the summary report.  Services with grades of adequate, weak and unsatisfactory will receive a themed inspection report, where we have changed the format and structure to make the information more concise and easier for people to read. 

Here are examples of our new inspection reports to help you to inform people who use your services of these changes.

Inspection report 1 - Themed inspection report
Inspection report 2 - Summary report 
Inspection report 3 - Follow up report