Annette Bruton CEO of Care Inspectorate explains her role

Guest blogger Annette Bruton, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate, explains how the organisation is developing its approach.  www.careinspectorate.com. 

Almost everyone in Scotland will use a care service at some point in their lives. That simple fact means everyone in the country has an interest in the quality of services provided across Scotland right now, from nurseries to care homes, and it means the question of what standards we expect will become an ever more important one in the future.

Care standards are always important..

As Scotland’s regulator for care services we have a duty to ensure everyone receives the best possible care; which means care that is safe, compassionate, meet people’s needs and respects their rights..

Talking about a duty is one thing. Putting it into practice is another.

But there’s more to our role than that, because not only do we have a duty to inspect and regulate, we also have a duty to inform people about the work we do.  Fundamental to the principle of respecting a person’s rights is respecting their right to choose.

Is that why an elderly person was taken into care against her will, perhaps?

And people can only make informed decisions if they have all the information they need. 

Is that why Mrs Kilbride was provided with no information, perhaps?

That’s why we have now embarked on a new way of highlighting some of the things we find out through our rigorous inspections.

GOOD. But you only have rigorous inspections for the situations you are prepared to inspect. Your department was certainly not willing to inspect the abuse of a Power of Attorney in Mrs Kilbride`s case, were they?  How many times has that happened?

On top of that we have just launched an innovative new way to communicate some of the other information we gather. The Hub is our new online resource aimed at Scotland’s 200,000 care workers.

Dare I tell you that the information you gather at the Hub is only as good as the people supplying the information?

Put simply our inspectors who are experts in early years provision inspect nurseries, and those with corresponding experience of care services for the elderly inspect care homes for the elderly...And that’s why we recently launched a bid to recruit more inspection volunteers.

Volunteers (?) who want to get close to vulnerable children and the elderly? I shudder to think ...and you are crowing about this?  How about stopping the banning of relatives from visiting their loved ones? That would be an even more robust system I assure you. How about dealing with complaints about it.

 To find out more about the work we do, (or less, as the case may be) and to get involved as a volunteer inspector, log on to our website www.careinspectorate.com