What good is the care inspectorate?

They promote an image that they come in shining armour to sort out poor management. eg 2 ‘surprise’ inspections this week of care homes in Aberdeenshire were well publicised. But both these care homes (and one in portree last year) had been in the news for weeks before the inspections, having had a lot of deaths, and a lot of staff off sick. It seems the inspectorate gets its info from the papers and the radio news.

It also does questionnaires, asking care home residents and their families to rate their satisfaction. But it does this by giving the questionnaires to the care home management, who choose which residents and relatives to pass them on to. So the management can choose to give them to the people who they think will give a good report, and not to anybody who has made previous complaints.

I think the Care Commission is a worthless body which has a cosy relationship with the bodies it’s meant to be policing. It should be shaken up or abolished.

This post was transferred for our former ideas board. It was written by user Jake Williams.