The short answer
Every care home in Scotland is registered with and inspected by the Care Inspectorate. After an inspection, the service is given a grade from 1 to 6 against each of the key questions the inspectors looked at, and a written report explaining why. Both the grades and the full report are published free on the Care Inspectorate website.
| Grade | Wording | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Excellent | Outstanding, sector-leading practice. Rare, and not expected everywhere. |
| 5 | Very good | Major strengths, very few areas for improvement. A strong home. |
| 4 | Good | Important strengths that clearly outweigh any weaknesses. A solid, well-run home. |
| 3 | Adequate | Strengths just outweigh weaknesses. Acceptable, but improvement is needed. |
| 2 | Weak | Significant weaknesses that must be addressed. Expect requirements and a follow-up. |
| 1 | Unsatisfactory | Major weaknesses requiring immediate action. Rare, and taken very seriously. |
Scotland does not use the English wording of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate. That is the Care Quality Commission, which has no role north of the border.
The key questions a home is graded against
Inspectors do not award a single overall score. They grade the service against a set of key questions, and the exact combination depends on the inspection. Broadly they cover:
- How well do we support people's wellbeing? Day-to-day experience, dignity, choice, health outcomes, meaningful activity and family involvement. This is the one to read first.
- How good is our leadership? Whether the manager knows the service, how quality is monitored, and whether improvement actually happens rather than being written down.
- How good is our staff team? Recruitment, staffing levels at the times that matter, training, supervision and turnover.
- How good is our setting? The building and grounds: safety, cleanliness, accessibility, and whether the environment supports people living with dementia.
- How well is our care and support planned? Personal plans, how they are reviewed, and whether people and families genuinely shape them.
Grading is against the Health and Social Care Standards, which are written in the first person from the point of view of the person receiving care. If you want to understand what inspectors are really testing, our guide to person-centred care in Scotland covers the same ground from the family's side.
Requirements and areas for improvement are not the same thing
This is the single most misread part of an inspection report, and the distinction matters a great deal.
| Requirement | Area for improvement | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A legally enforceable action the service must take, with a deadline. | Advice on something that would make a good service better. |
| Why it is issued | Something falls short of a legal duty or of the Standards in a way that affects people. | Practice is acceptable but could be strengthened. |
| What follows | The Care Inspectorate follows up and can escalate if it is not met. | Reviewed at the next inspection; no enforcement attached. |
A home with two areas for improvement and no requirements is in a materially different position from a home with two unmet requirements, even if the headline grades look similar. Look for whether requirements from the previous inspection were met - that tells you more about how a home is run than any single number.
How to read an inspection report properly
- 01
Check the date
A grade from three years ago describes a home that may have changed managers twice since. Recent inspections carry far more weight.
- 02
Read the wellbeing section first
It is the closest thing to a description of what daily life is actually like, and it usually contains direct quotes from residents and families.
- 03
Look at the direction of travel
A home that moved from 3 to 4 to 5 across three inspections is a different proposition from one that slid from 5 to 3, even though both currently show a 4 somewhere.
- 04
Separate requirements from improvements
Count the requirements, check the deadlines, and check whether previous ones were met.
- 05
Ask the manager about it
Bring the report to your visit and ask what changed as a result. A confident, specific answer is a very good sign. Defensiveness is not.
How to check any care home's current grades
- 01Go to the Care Inspectorate website and use the find-a-service search.
- 02Search by the service name or by town, and open the entry for the specific home - not the provider.
- 03Read the current grades, then download the most recent full inspection report as a PDF.
- 04Check the inspection date and whether any requirements are outstanding.
- 05Repeat for every home on your shortlist, so you are comparing like with like.
What a low grade does and does not mean
A 3 is not a scandal and a 2 is not automatically a reason to walk away, though it is a reason to ask hard questions. Grades slip for reasons that vary enormously in seriousness: a paperwork system that was not keeping up, a period of heavy agency cover after a flu outbreak, a new manager inheriting a backlog, or genuine failures in care.
- Read what specifically was graded low. A weak grade on the setting is a different concern from a weak grade on wellbeing.
- Ask when the follow-up inspection is due, and what has changed since.
- Ask who the manager is and how long they have been in post.
- Trust the wellbeing narrative over the number if the two seem to disagree.
- If the report describes people being left without support they need, treat that as decisive.
Grades are one of three things worth weighing, alongside what you see on two visits at different times of day and what the home tells you about staffing and fees. Our guide to choosing a care home sets out the rest.