Falkirk is the best place to grow old in Scotland when it comes to the quality of care homes, according to new analysis.
The Sunday Times in Scotland has ranked the country's care homes based on official metrics, allowing families to scrutinise standards across the care industry.
Care homes in Falkirk were the highest rated of all Scotland's 32 local authorities.
Auchtermairnie Care Home, in Kennoway near Leven, was among four homes to come close to top marks, and has been named the Sunday Times Care Home of the Year 2023.
The home was rated “very good” for wellbeing and leadership in an inspection several months ago.
St Catherine’s care home, in Lanark; St Ninian’s Care Home in Blairgowrie; and last year's winner Abbeyfield Ballachulish, in Highland, also scored the highest marks.
With four care homes tied on points, the winner was selected according to its most recent inspection reports.
The findings come as part of The Sunday Times’ Care Home League Table, which ranks each provider in Scotland based on the most recent results allocated to them by the Care Inspectorate, the regulator for the care industry.
Each provider is given an overall score calculated from their performance in the categories of well-being, care, staff, setting, leadership and potential risk to patients.
The Care Inspectorate also logs the number of upheld complaints and enforcements at each home in the last three years.
Homes with a high number of complaints and enforcements are relegated down the league table and score were compiled in April 2023.
A Sunday Times Scotland spokesman said: “Our care home league table presents the public with valuable data from which they can make decisions for their loved ones who are in most need of care.
“The aim of the league table is to present data in an easily accessible format that family members can understand.
"It is not intended to be Scotland’s care homes ranked from best to worst.
“These statistics fail to capture the adversity that carers have endured in the recovery from the pandemic as well as the countless hours of hard work they have committed to give people in need of care."
The Care Inspectorate grades care homes on a six-point scale ranging from one which is unsatisfactory, to six which is excellent.
Care Homes are graded across five categories which are support and wellbeing; care and support planning; setting; staff and; leadership.
The Care Inspectorate also assigns a risk factor ranging from low, to medium to high to assess how closely the care home should be monitored.
The Times has converted this risk factor into a numerical value so low risk homes are graded three, medium graded two and high graded one.
The Times has aggregated the grades and risk factors into a single score so readers can see at a glance which are performing well and which performed poorly at the last inspection.
The league also includes a postcode finder so readers can find the best care homes in their area.
The full grades and inspection dates can be obtained from the Care Inspectorate and the grades are taken from the latest Care Inspectorate publication dated 18 July 2023.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here