Choosing the right care home for a loved one can be an overwhelming decision.
So, we have created a tracker that makes it easier to compare and analyse care home performance across and within local authorities in Scotland.
Care homes across Scotland are regularly scrutinised by the Care Inspectorate.
The regulatory body inspects more than 11,000 services from early learning to community justice.
A Care Inspectorate report is published after each investigation, but the body also collates the data across Scotland in the form of a monthly spreadsheet.
Our charts below evaluate the grading, complaints and total number of services by local authorities as well as the latest available information on individual services.
Compare care home performance in your local authority
The Care Inspectorate uses a six-point grading scale to rank the performance of services across Scotland.
The grades are awarded for a series of categories referred to as key questions, which help target areas for improvement.
For care homes, they include:
- How well do we support people’s wellbeing?
- How good is our leadership
- How good is our staff team?
- How good is our setting?
- How well is our care and support planned?
Our Care Calibre, a custom-made tool below, allows you to compare all adult services within a local authority.
By selecting a key question you can view how care homes performed in their most recent grading, as well as if there have been any upheld complaints since 2022/23.
If you are interested in a specific service use the highlight filter to make it stand out across the grade view.
How many care homes are there?
Care homes must be registered with the Care Inspectorate unless the service decides to cancel.
The body also publishes a list of cancelled services each month and removes them from their full list of services in the datastore.
Public Health Scotland has previously warned about a shrinking number of care homes from 2013 to 2023.
So to keep a finger on the pulse, we will track the number of all care homes registered with the Care Inspectorate each month.
The chart below includes all types of care homes, including care homes for children.
Meanwhile, in the north and north-east there appears to be more fluctuations in the trend.
How are care homes graded on a council level?
The below charts take an average of all the care home grades within a local authority.
They will be up to date for the latest available data on the Care Inspectorate website.
Calculating the averages on a monthly basis, shows some shifts within the local authority mean performance.
The quality framework is based on Health and Social Care Standards published in 2017.
It sets out what each individual should expect when using health or social care services.
The scatter chart shows the most recently available data on average grades across Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Highlands, Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles.
What about complaints and enforcements?
As the watchdog for care services, the Care Inspectorate also has the duty of investigating relevant complaints made by the public.
Complaints can surround inadequate standards of care, the conduct of staff or the failure to uphold the rights of a service user.
But the body can refuse to investigate matters if six months have passed since the reported incident.
Following an investigation into a complaint, the inspectorate may make requirements for changes to the service involved.
The data on individual services, however, tracks the number of complaints upheld by the Care Inspectorate.
The number of complaints and enforcements is tracked across financial years starting on April 1 each year.
After an inspection or upheld complaint, a service may be issued with requirements it must meet.
Occasionally, a service may be handed an improvement notice. The notice provides a deadline for improvement. If a service fails to implement the needed changes, the watchdog will take action to cancel the service.
Enforcement can also take place as condition notices.
These are issued when the Care Inspectorate needs to change the conditions of registration of a service.
Find your care service
The table below shows the most recently available grades for all registered care homes in Scotland.
Among other subtypes, it includes care homes for older people, mental health problems, learning disabilities, alcohol & drug misuse and physical and sensory impairments.
The table will also be automatically updated with the data for the last available date on the Care Inspectorate website.
Methodology
The Care Inspectorate uploads a complete dataset of all of the registered services to its datastore each month.
But to compare changes from month to month, we had to use code to analyse and compare the latest update to the previous month.
The code is run each time a new monthly spreadsheet is uploaded into the datastore.
This allows the charts to demonstrate the latest available info and inspection results.
However, to ensure consistency across historic records, the code also cleans the data of spelling inconsistency that could impact the data.
The charts will be updated each month once the finalised dataset for the previous month is published.
While there is not a consistent date of publication, this tracker is expected to be updated by the third week of the month.
If you are interested in how childcare services perform in your area visit our childcare tracker.
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