Joint inspections of integrated services for adults
Along with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, we carry out joint inspections of health and social work services for adults. From April 2016 Integration Joint Boards have been in place made up of representatives from NHS boards, local authorities third and independent sectors and those who use health and social care services. The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland Act) 2014 and guidance aims to ensure the provision of seamless, consistent, efficient and high-quality services, which deliver very good outcomes for individuals and carers. Each local partnership had to produce a joint commissioning strategy and a joint integration plan, for adult services. From 2017 we carried out inspections of health and social care integration focussing on progress made in strategic planning and commissioning.
Following a review of progress in health and social care integration by a Ministerial Strategic Group we have been working together with Healthcare Improvement Scotland to develop an updated inspection methodology, including a set of quality indicators to inspect against. This methodology is to determine how effectively health and social work services work in partnership, including the third and independent sectors, to deliver very good outcomes across the whole adult population
The inspection teams are made up of inspectors and associate inspectors from both the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland and clinical advisers seconded from NHS boards. We plan to have inspection volunteers who are members of the public who use a care service, have used a care service in the past or are carers and Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s public partners on each of our inspections.
Joint inspections of services for adults
Our approach
The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 sets the legislative framework for integrating adult health and social care.
Integrating health and social care services is important to ensure that people have quick access to the range of services and support they need, that their care feels seamless to them and that they experience good outcomes and high standards of support. This is particularly vital for the increasing numbers of people with multiple, complex, long-term conditions in Scotland.
Since April 2017, the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland have had joint statutory responsibility to inspect and support improvement in the strategic planning and commissioning of integrated approaches.
In 2019, the Ministerial Strategic Group (MSG) for Health and Community Care asked us to further develop our joint inspections to focus on how integration impacts on people’s outcomes, to consider the performance of the whole health and social care partnership and to ensure a balanced focus across health and social care provision.
In response to the MSG recommendation, the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland have reviewed our joint inspection methodology to answer the following question:
“How effectively is the partnership working together, strategically and operationally, to deliver seamless services that achieve good health and wellbeing outcomes for adults?”
In order to address the question over the broad spectrum of adult health and social care services, we will conduct a rolling programme of themed inspections, looking at how integration of services positively supports people’s experiences and outcomes. It’s important to note that these thematic inspections are not considering the quality of specialist care for each care group but are simply a means of identifying groups of people with similar or shared experiences through which to understand if health and social care integration arrangements are resulting in good outcomes. In this way, we’re looking at integration through the lens of different care groups which, taken together, will in time build a picture of what is happening more broadly in health and social care integration and how this is experienced by people and the outcomes achieved.
How we do it
Our inspections last for a number of months. We work closely with the partnership to co-ordinate our inspection activities.
We have a range of ways to gather information that will help us to assess how integrated services in the area are helping to improve outcomes for people and their unpaid carers. These include:
- asking for information from the partnership
- speaking to people who use health and social care services and their unpaid carers
- speaking with staff, managers and leaders across the partnership
- reading people’s records.
We communicate regularly with the partnership and keep them up to date with our findings.
After the inspection, we publish a report about our findings on the Care Inspectorate’s and Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s websites. The report explains what we have found, identifies strengths and points out areas that could be improved. We agree an Improvement plan with the partnership to address those areas.
Getting involved
The voices of people who use health and social care services and of their unpaid carers are at the centre of our inspection. We will use as many opportunities as we can to get people involved and talk to them about their experiences of health and social care services.
We have developed an engagement framework to support all our engagement activity. The framework sets out 12 statements about positive outcomes and experiences that we will speak with people about.
More information
You can find full information about joint adult inspections:
- The Partnership guide sets out the inspection process step by step and provides all the information that partnerships need to manage their part in the inspection.
- The Quality Indicator Framework (QIF) explains the criteria we use to evaluate quality in our inspections
- The Engagement framework provides a set of “I” statements to help us consider the experience of people who use health and social care services and their unpaid carers. It underpins all the engagement with people and unpaid carers that takes place during the inspection.
- Our joint inspection reports can be found here.
Joint inspections of services for children and young people
Our approach
In 2017, Scottish Ministers asked us to work with scrutiny partners to take a more focused look at children and young people in need of care and protection. Our joint inspections therefore take account of their experiences and outcomes by looking at the services provided for them by health visitors, school nurses, teachers, doctors, social workers, police officers and lots of other people who work with them and their families.
Children and young people have told us about the importance of being able to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships. They want to be able to build trust through consistent relationships with adults and they want to be supported to maintain contact with those people who are most important in their lives. Our approach therefore looks carefully at how well services and systems are organised so that they can experience continuity in their care and develop and sustain lasting relationships.
We believe that staff who are well trained and who feel valued and empowered, are more likely to be able to provide high quality services for children and young people. We therefore explore how well staff are supported to carry out their task.
We know that partners recognise that assessment and planning are critical to ensure the safety of, and improving outcomes for, children and young people. However, we also know that performance in assessment and planning is not as consistently strong across the country as it needs to be and we will look to see if robust quality assurance and high quality reflective supervision are in place.
Our inspections also consider whether legal measures are being used appropriately to achieve security and stability for vulnerable children. Inspections include a focus on the role played by those working in adult services to protect children and young people and support sustained positive change for them and their families.
Strong collaborative leadership is essential within the challenging context of providing high quality public services in an integrated landscape. We consider the effectiveness of collaborative leadership, including leadership of the child protection committee and its relationship with chief officers. We look at how well leaders can demonstrate what difference they are collectively making to the lives of children in need of protection and those for whom they are corporate parents. We also identify any barriers that affect continued improved performance.
We started the current round of joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection in August 2018 and will continue to review and revise the approach over the course of these inspections. Following the suspension of joint inspections in 2020 due to Covid 19, the current round has resumed with a focus on children at risk of harm.
How we do it
Our inspections last for a number of months. We collect information about the area before we visit it. This helps us to understand what happens there and what is affecting the way that services are being provided.
During the inspection, a team of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and other scrutiny partners:
- speak with the staff
- speak with children and young people and listen to their views
- speak with parents and carers
- read information about the children and young people.
This gives us the chance to find out if children, young people and their families are getting the help that they need and if services are making a difference to their lives. What individual people tell us during inspection is confidential. Our reports do not include any information about them or their family, or anything that could identify them. However, we do have a duty to pass on information if there are concerns about someone’s safety.
After our inspection, we publish a report on our website about what we found for the area. Our inspection reports set out what works well and what could improve. We expect the community planning partnership to take action on any recommendations we make for improvements.
Getting involved
What you think really matters. If we are inspecting your area, and you have experience of services, you may want to speak to us about the help that you have been getting.
We will offer a range of ways for you to give us feedback. As well as a survey we will arrange one-to-one discussions and group meetings. Our one-to-one discussions can take place in person, or we can contact you by phone or other ways such as Facetime or MS Teams.
If you give us information anonymously, we may not be able to get in contact with you if you raise concerns about your own safety or the safety of anyone else. If you have such concerns, we would encourage you to contact your local authority and ask for their child protection or adult protection service. You can also contact Childline on 0800 1111. If we have any concerns about the safety of individuals, we will share this with protection agencies in the relevant area.
Our inspection team also includes young inspection volunteers. These are young people aged 18 – 26 with experience of care services who help us with our inspections. If you are a young person, you can choose to speak with one of them and you can have someone to support you when you meet them. If you are a young person and want to know more about becoming a young inspection volunteer or how to get involved, click here to find out more.
The Promise
The Care Inspectorate is #Keeping The Promise of the independent care review. We are working across six workstreams internally and externally to influence and support application of the Promise,
Our strategic scrutiny children and young people team is committed to ensuring that our scrutiny and improvement activity is focused on the experiences of children and the impact of services on their lives.
Inspection volunteers with care experience are key members if our local scrutiny teams. We will amplify the voice of the child in what we do, how we do it and how we report on it.
More information
The Guide provides information for community planning partnerships (CPP) about the process for the joint inspection of services for children and young people in need of care and protection. This includes services for children under the age of 18 years, or young people up to 26 years if they have been previously looked after. It should be read in conjunction with the quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection (QIF) for self-evaluation of services.
Find out more:
- Our joint inspection reports can be found here.
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people in need of care and protection Review of findings from the inspection programme 2018-2020
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people A report on the findings of inspections 2014-16
- The Guide
Justice
Our approach
The Care Inspectorate was tasked by the Scottish Government to lead on scrutiny and assurance to support the implementation of the community justice model and provide up-to-date scrutiny and assurance of justice social work.
The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 introduced the current model of community justice. The Scottish Government outline the priorities in the national strategy for community justice.
The Act also established a national body, Community Justice Scotland to oversee community justice and introduce requirements to achieve national and local outcomes. These are highlighted within an Outcomes, Performance and Improvement Framework (OPIF).
The Scottish Government also commissioned the Care Inspectorate to develop a guide to self-evaluation for community justice in Scotland. The self-evaluation guide aligns to the national strategy and the OPI Framework (OPIF).
The guide is primarily for community justice partnerships to support continuous improvement. It also informs our approach to scrutiny and assurance of justice social work.
Since the strategic justice strategic team was established in 2018, we have undertaken a range of scrutiny, assurance and improvement activities in collaboration with a number of partners. We published an overview report in December 2021 which details our work and summarises the key findings.
How we do it
For detail on the methods we have used below, follow this link.
- Justice social work: inspections of community payback orders
- Community justice partnerships: supported and validated self-evaluation
- Community justice social work: throughcare review
- Our other work with scrutiny partners
Getting involved
We are committed to meaningfully involving people with lived experience of the justice system in our scrutiny, assurance and improvement activities. We want to develop an ethical, person-centred approach that promotes best practice. A pilot approach was developed in partnership with a national third sector agency. However, intended activities were disrupted by Covid-19. We aim to progress this work in 2022/23.
If you have any questions about our work please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Learning reviews (children and young people)
Learning reviews (children and young people)
The Care Inspectorate, on behalf of the Scottish Government, acts as a central collation point for all learning reviews carried out by Child Protection Committees (CPCs) in Scotland.
The Care Inspectorate is responsible for reviewing the effectiveness of the processes for each learning review and for providing feedback to individual Chief Officer Groups and CPCs.
All learning reviews reports will be shared with the Care Inspectorate. The National Guidance for Child Protection Committees for Undertaking Learning Reviews published in September 2021, clearly sets out that CPCs will inform the Care Inspectorate of their decision on whether to carry out a learning Review. On the completion of a learning review, a copy of the full report should be sent to us.
Notifications
CPCs are required to notify the Care Inspectorate of their decision to proceed or not to proceed to a learning review using the Care Inspectorate’s eform system. To do so, the CPC needs to have a user account to log into the system.
Submission of Learning Review Reports
Please submit the full Learning review Report through our secure email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The main contact for this work is:
Maureen Wylie, Strategic Inspector
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Mobile: 07717 423154
Other information
- National Policy and Legislation - Child Protection
- Learning reviews for children National overview report
- Code of practice for the review of learning reviews of children and young people in Scotland
Learning reviews, Initial Case Reviews (ICRS) & Significant Case Reviews (SCRS) – Adults
Initial Case Reviews and Significant Case Reviews
National Guidance for Adult Protection Committees Undertaking Learning Reviews was published on 26 May 2022. This sets out that Adult Protection Committees will inform the Care Inspectorate of the decision to proceed with a learning review, or the reasons for not doing so. On completion of a learning review, an anonymised copy of the review report should be sent to us, and a notification of completion submitted.
There will be reviews ongoing that pre-date 26 May 2022. As such, there will be an overlap in submission of learning reviews and of Initial and Signficant Case Reviews which commenced on or after 5 November 2019, and before 26 May 2022.
For the foreseeable future we will accept all reviews, regardless of their structure.
The relevant online notification system for learning reviews, ICRs and SCRs should be used for all submissions. The forms have in built prompts and guidance to support completion.
Please note online submissions require to be completed in one sitting – they cannot be saved when partially completed and then returned to. There is work ongoing to develop this system.
Learning Reviews
For all situations considered under the learning review guidance, a decision notification form should be completed. This electronic notification form is to be completed at the point when a decision has been made to conduct a learning review, or to detail the reasons for not doing so.
A word version of the notification form has been provided here. This could be used to develop the submission, and then be copied into the online version.
Learning review decision notifications should be submitted here: learning review decision notification.
On conclusion of the learning review, an outcome notification form should be completed within seven days of ratification of the outcome of the learning review by the Chief Officers Group.
A word version of the learning outcome notification form has been provided here. This could be used to develop the responses, and then be copied into the online version.
The learning review outcome notification should be submitted here: learning review outcome notification.
Following completion of the learning review outcome notification, an anonymised copy of the learning review report should be sent via secure email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
ICR and SCR
A word version of the ICR notification has been provided here. This could be used to develop the responses, and then be copied into the online version.
Adult Protection Committees should note the word version is to support the development of the submission. The submission should however be returned through the online tool.
Adult Protection Committees are required to submit the full ICR report to the Care Inspectorate along with the completed ‘Form B’ (ICR notification) within seven days of ratification of the outcome of the ICR by the Chief Officers Group.
The ICR notification should be submitted here: ICR notification.
The Care Inspectorate, on behalf of Scottish Government, acts as a central collation point for all Significant Case Reviews completed across Scotland at the point at which they are concluded. Further to agreeing the Final Report, in accordance with the steps detailed in The Guidance (2019), Adult Protection Committees should timeously agree a dissemination approach, including submission to the Care Inspectorate.
A word version of the SCR notification has been provided here. This could be used to develop the responses, and then be copied into the online version.
SCR notifications should be submitted here: SCR Reporting Form.
Adult Protection Committees can request to receive a pdf version of the information they submit via the online submission mechanism.
The Care Inspectorate is the central repository for all ICRs and SCRs as a way of supporting learning from these reviews to be shared and implemented more widely. As such, it is important that all reviews that are similar in purpose though not labelled as an ICR, SCR are also submitted.
Following completion of the ICR or SCR, an anonymised copy of the ICR and SCR report as applicable should be sent to us via secure email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The main contact for this work is:
Caroline Doherty, Strategic Inspector
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Link inspectors and relationship managers
The Care Inspectorate provides a designated link team for local authorities and strategic partnerships. This is because there are multiple services of different types and a need for regular planned contact to discuss emerging issues across the breadth of their work. Link teams consist of a strategic inspector, who is responsible for scrutiny carried out at authority or strategic partnership level; a relationship manager for adult care services and complaints about care services; and a relationship manager for children’s care services and registration.
Relationship managers also provide a designated point of contact for larger providers who operate multiple services.
Managers responsible for services for children also link to each of the six regional collaboratives that have now been established across the country.
Named strategic link inspectors and relationship managers can be found here.
Find information on the link inspector role for council and partnership staff here.
You can get information about the link inspector for a particular local authority area by e-mailing the strategic support team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Make Every Moment Count
We have worked with a team of experts to develop the ‘Make Every Moment Count’ resource, an information leaflet which contains easy to read and simple guidance for everyone supporting older people in a care home or at home.
The resource highlights how making the most of every moment can make a real difference to a person’s quality of life in simple but very meaningful ways.
The five key messages are:
- Get to know me
- It's not just what you do... it's how you make me feel
- Know what I can do and support me to do it
- Help me feel comfortable, safe and secure in my surroundings
- Remember little things all add up
By providing key messages on how to better understand an individual’s needs, values and lifestyle, the guide will help people working in care services to deliver an enhanced experience for Scotland’s older people.
Hear more about the resource in our video.
To order copies of this information leaflet, poster or DVD, please call our enquiries team on 0345 600 9527 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Some signposts to useful information
www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/dementia
http://www.nmhdu.org.uk/silo/files/lets-respect-toolkit-for-care-homes-.pdf
http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/home/index.html
http://www.active-ageing-events.org.uk/home/index.html
Actively Engaged