What is an inspection report?

After inspecting care services or a local council's social services department we publish a report on what we find.

Click on the link below to find a report or read on for more information about our reports.

Care home and care service reports

Our inspectors check care services to make sure they are meeting people’s needs.

We also take into account national minimum standards, set by the government. These describe what people can expect from the services.

One of the ways we check on services is to carry out inspections.

There are three different types of inspection for care homes and care services.

Our inspectors write a report after each inspection.

The reports say what the service does well and lists any improvements they need to make.

An inspection report may also include a quality rating, ranging from zero stars (poor) to three stars (excellent), making it easier for you to choose and compare services.

We send a copy of the report to the service’s owner and manager, who have 28 days to make any comments. We also allow them the opportunity to challenge the quality rating we have awarded.

We keep their comments for our records and publish the final report on our website.

Find out more

Council reports

We carry out inspections of local council social care services departments.

Some of these inspections are carried out with other inspectorates like the Healthcare Commission.

The inspections look at how good the council is at doing certain tasks and achieving some specific results.

Each inspection will focus on a different part of a council's responsibilities, for example services for older people or how well people are safeguarded.

Our inspectors write a report after each inspection. We give a copy of the report to the council to tell them what they are doing well and where they need to improve.

Once the report has been presented to the full council or the appropriate executive committee we publish it on our website.

The council has to write a plan to say what they are going to do to improve. We then keep in touch with them to check on the progress they are making.

Children's services

From April 2007, all children's services are inspected by Ofsted.

Find out more

Created: 3/16/2006 Last updated: 5/1/2008