A few changes to visiting made all the difference – a care home manager shares their experience

A few changes to visiting made all the difference – a care home manager shares their experience

On a recent call with my inspector, we were discussing how my service was managing visiting – it has been stressful trying to achieve a good balance between supporting and encouraging good quality visiting while keeping our residents as safe from Covid as possible. I was disappointed when she highlighted that our visiting arrangements were too rigid and not in line with guidance, but she was supportive and encouraging and I came away with some really constructive and practical advice.

We’ve now made some changes based on our inspector’s advice and I’m so glad we did. With some simple adjustments, we’ve really improved the visiting experience for residents and their loved ones. It feels better for me and my staff too; being able to make visiting more welcoming, homely and accessible is helping us make a positive difference for residents and that’s something we’re really passionate about.

I’d like to share a few key highlights of the changes we made.

• The booking system has been removed, with only a request from families to notify us if possible, prior to the visit so we can ensure the resident is not busy in another activity when they arrive.
• We have created an additional visiting area downstairs so that two visits can take place in a communal visiting area at the same time if the family/residents are not keen on a visit in the bedroom.
• We will be offering one of the toilets at the main entrance as a primary visitor toilet with further enhanced cleaning in place.
• We have removed the need to distance or wear a mask outdoors in line with the guidance too and reduced the social distance back to 1m indoors (not overtly marked in any way, just subtle and homely positioning of the chairs).
• Children were always allowed to visit indoors and outdoors for some time now, but we hadn’t made that clear – we have made sure everyone is aware of this now.
• We had been encouraging outings, but we are now highlighting that these can be to local cafes or to the relative’s household for a visit and so on.
• We are ensuring that any risk assessments we undertake now demonstrate less rigidity and a greater level of warmth.

I also had a person-centred discussion around visiting with one family that had raised concerns to discuss all the changes we were making and answer any queries. It was a really productive and positive discussion. Not long after, they came to visit their loved one and brought their daughter and two grandchildren too. They all went for an outdoor visit to the loch and the play park together since it was a quite bright and mild day. I spoke to them afterwards and they were very complimentary, saying “We had a wonderful time. It was the best visit we have had since Covid began. Mum was on great form”. (We always encourage staff to engage a resident in a person-centred stimulating activity pre-visit so the resident is able to engage really well during a visit or video call and the resident had been playing Simon Says with the staff and also had a short walk in the garden for some fresh air before the family arrived, which hopefully helped her engage well on the visit.)

I encourage fellow care home managers and providers to get in touch with your inspector if you’re concerned about visiting. I was met with positivity, encouragement and constructive advice, and with a few quick fixes, we were able to make a big difference.

Chief Inspector (Adult Services)

Contract:      Permanent

Salary:           £82,920 – 40 hours per week

Location:      Flexible – Any Care Inspectorate office across Scotland

About us

As a national regulator and scrutiny body, we inspect care across communities, report on the quality of care people experience, and ensure it is as good as it can be. We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement.

We inspect care services individually. We also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in local areas.

We champion high-quality care whenever we encounter it across the thousands of inspections, we carry out each year, and we work closely with all care providers to support them to improve all the time. We collaborate with other organisations too, supporting improvement across public services. Our work plays a big role in reducing health and social inequalities between people and communities.

About the role

We are currently looking to recruit a Chief Inspector to lead on the planning, development, and delivery of strategic inspection activity in respect of adult services including joint inspections of health and social care integration, adult support and protection and justice services.

The successful candidate will ensure excellence in scrutiny, assurance and improvement work in collaboration with scrutiny partners, providers, Community planning partners and integrated joint boards.

You will support the Executive Director of Scrutiny and Assurance to ensure that the Care Inspectorate meets its responsibilities as defined by the Public Services Reform Act 2010 and other relevant legislation, and where appropriate provide strategic contribution and leadership to inform national policy and strategy.

You will work with senior managers and colleagues to support significant cultural change, consolidate excellence in the Care Inspectorate’s activities and continue to invest in our competent, confident workforce in a way that puts collaboration at the core of our work.

Adept at challenging traditional thinking in a positive and constructive way, you will be an articulate and positive communicator, both verbally and in written form, with the ability to engage, influence and lead the development of a wide range of key stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally.

You will also be politically astute and demonstrate a broad knowledge of trends and relevant issues within social work and social care services.

The Care Inspectorate has its headquarters in Dundee, but with offices throughout Scotland, your work base is negotiable.

The Application process

To apply you must be:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Hold an appropriate post-graduate professional qualification in social work or other relevant professional qualification

We are looking for someone who has:

• Extensive experience of leading and managing staff in the area of adults, justice and/or protection services.
• Extensive experience of developing and/or applying quality assurance/improvement frameworks to support self-evaluation and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrable experience of strategic planning and delivery of services and supporting and embedding sustainable business and transformational change.
• Extensive experience of collaborative and values-based leadership including working with partners at both a strategic and operational level.

You’ll find more information in the job description and person specification

Next steps

You’ll find more information in the:

• job profile
• person specification
• job advert

For an informal chat about the role please contact the HR team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will arrange a suitably convenient time for you to discuss any questions you may have with the Executive Director of Scrutiny and Assurance.

If you believe that your expertise, skills and motivation make you suitable for this post, please complete an application form (and an Equalities Monitoring Form where you are an external applicant) and return by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Monday, 14 February 2022 at 8.00am.

It is anticipated that the selection and interview date for this post will be held on Tuesday, 8 March 2022.