One in six care homes for the elderly is providing unsatisfactory or weak services, a report on standards in Scotland has warned.

But the study rated 80% of all care services across the country as good, very good or excellent.

The Care Commission studied the quality of care provided by adult and children's services in Scotland over the year to March 2009.

It also judged nursing agencies, foster care and childminders.

The Care Commission said they were focusing on services which were performing badly to demand improvements to ensure the required quality of care.

This is the first year of graded results for care services, which were gathered from more than 11,000 inspections carried out by the Care Commission.

Private sector

The 'Making the Grade' report, found that one in six care homes for the elderly achieved poor grades, with the services they provide judged as unsatisfactory or weak in at least one area.

Just over 3% of care homes achieved these grades in every category they were judged on, including quality of care, staffing and management.

Housing support and care-at-home services achieved the best results in adult services, with 48% and 46% respectively achieving grades of very good or excellent.

For adult services, the private sector had the highest proportion of services receiving poor grades while the voluntary sector had the highest proportion of services with high grades.

In Fife, 40% of adult services, the highest in the country, were judged as very good or excellent, whereas 4.5% of services in Argyll & Bute, the highest proportion, were found to be unsatisfactory or weak.

It is so important that people who use services and families understand that they can play a major role in insisting on and driving forward improvements in care standards Ronnie Hill Care Commission

The majority of children's services achieved good grades, with about 98% judged adequate for their quality of care and support.

One in three childminding services scored highly across every category while 25% of children's day-care services also achieved the top grades.

Care Commission director Ronnie Hill said: "The grading system provides people in care and their families with better information and therefore more choice and involvement about the standards of care provided at every care service in Scotland."

He added: "It is so important that people who use services and families understand that they can play a major role in insisting on and driving forward improvements in care standards.

"Grading gives everyone 'at-a-glance' information about whether a service is performing well or not.

"It means that good providers are getting the recognition they deserve and those who need to do better are under intense pressure to improve.

"To get good grades, services have to show that the children and adults who use the services have good outcomes, are well cared for, supported and protected."

Examples of good practice singled out in the report included the Highland Hospice, Harmeny School in Edinburgh and Hilton Lodge Nursing Home in East Lothian.

The Care Commission has the power to take enforcement action and shut down poorly-performing services.

A new regulator, the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA), will take on the work currently undertaken by the Care Commission next year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8587206.stm