Current status: Answered by Maree Todd on 27 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government when the joint visits by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland to all adolescent in-patient units and the national child in-patient unit will begin, and how often these joint visits will be carried out.
The Scottish Government has asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and the Mental Welfare Commission (MWC) to undertake joint inspections of all child and adolescent inpatient units in Scotland as a matter of priority.
Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and myself met with both organisations in March to discuss this. HIS and the MWC are working jointly to establish these inspections. The inspections will start once a robust plan has been agreed, ensuring effective oversight of the quality and safety of these services. We expect that this will become a regular programme of inspections depending on the recommendations made from the initial round.