Care Inspectorate Wales inspection: a checklist for care homes and home care

A Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) inspection looks at four themes: well-being, care and support, environment, and leadership and management. Care homes and domiciliary support services get a rating for each theme: Excellent, Good, Requires improvement or Requires significant improvement. Home care isn't rated on environment, and there's no overall rating. Inspections are usually unannounced, so the evidence has to be ready every day, not just in the week you think they're due.

This guide covers the rules (and which are law and which are guidance), how CIW inspects and rates, what to have ready under each theme, and what the Responsible Individual must be doing between inspections.

The rules CIW inspects against

• Law: the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, often called RISCA. It sets up service registration, the Responsible Individual role and CIW's inspection powers.
• Law: the Regulated Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2017. These are the detailed duties: staffing, fitness of staff, notifications, premises, records, and the Responsible Individual's visits and quality reviews.
• Statutory guidance: Welsh Government's guidance for service providers and Responsible Individuals (version 3, March 2024). It sits under each regulation and says what compliance looks like, for example quarterly one-to-one supervision. Providers must have regard to it.
• Law: the Regulated Services (Inspection Ratings) (Wales) Regulations 2025, in force from 31 March 2025, which brought in published ratings and the duty to display them.
• CIW's Code of Practice for Inspection, which explains how CIW inspects and how often.

If you're used to England, the big differences are the Responsible Individual (a named, accountable person with specific legal duties) and ratings by theme rather than one overall rating. Our CQC inspection checklist covers England.

How CIW inspects

CIW's Code of Practice says inspections are usually unannounced. Domiciliary support services may get a short period of notice. On the day, inspectors:

• talk with people using the service, their families, staff, the manager and visiting professionals;
• observe care, including with SOFI (a structured observation tool) where people can't easily tell them about their experience;
• look round the environment;
• read records and policies, and may take copies;
• check whether a service in Welsh is offered without people having to ask (the "Active Offer").

They also use what they already hold: your statement of purpose, your annual return, your quality of care reports, notifications you've sent and any concerns raised.

Inspection frequency

Source: CIW's ratings FAQ for providers and Code of Practice. CIW can inspect at any time when it receives concerns, notifications or safeguarding referrals.

The four ratings, and displaying them

From 1 April 2025, every care home (adults and children) and domiciliary support service inspected in Wales gets a rating per theme. This is law under the 2025 ratings regulations, which also require you to:

• show your latest rating on every website you run for the service, and
• for most services, display it at the premises, conspicuously, without delay after the report is published.

Exempt from the premises sign: care homes mainly for under-18s, care homes for four or fewer people, and domiciliary support services run from a place the public can't access. Failing to display where required is an offence. You must display the rating whatever it is.

Evidence checklist by theme

Use this as a self-check. It's built from the 2017 Regulations and the statutory guidance, not a CIW form.

Well-being

• Personal plans that show each person's outcomes and how they're met, reviewed at least every three months (Regulation 16).
• Evidence people are listened to: residents' meetings, feedback, how you acted on it.
• Safeguarding records, referrals and outcomes; DoLS requests.
• Welsh language: how you identify people whose first language is Welsh and work towards offering care in Welsh (statutory guidance under Regulation 24).
• Complaints and compliments, with what changed as a result.

Care and support

• Staffing that matches the statement of purpose and people's needs, and a record of how you worked the numbers out (Regulation 34). See our care home rota guide for Wales.
• A training matrix showing core and specialist training is current.
• Social Care Wales registration for care workers and managers (Regulation 35). See Social Care Wales registration.
• Supervision at least quarterly and an annual appraisal for every member of staff (statutory guidance under Regulation 36). See supervision and appraisal.
• Medicines audits and actions.
• For home care: schedules of visits showing travel time and visit time, and records of time actually spent (Regulation 41).

Environment (accommodation services only)

• Fire risk assessment, alarm tests, emergency lighting and fire drill records. Fire safety in Wales is under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, as in England.
• Water temperature and legionella records. See care home water temperature checks.
• Gas, electrical, LOLER and equipment certificates in date.
• Cleaning and infection control audits, with actions closed.

Leadership and management

• A current statement of purpose, revised and notified to CIW at least 28 days before changes take effect.
• Responsible Individual visits at least every three months, with notes of who they spoke to, what they reviewed and the actions (Regulation 73, law).
• Quality of care reviews at least every six months, with a report to the provider (Regulation 80, law).
• Notifications sent to CIW, with dates. See CIW notifications.
• Audits and an action plan with owners and due dates, and evidence actions get closed.
• Incident analysis: patterns, lessons learned and what changed.
• Policies reviewed and in date.

The Responsible Individual's job between inspections

CIW's leadership and management theme leans heavily on the Responsible Individual. These are law, from the 2017 Regulations:

For domiciliary support services, the statutory guidance says the RI's visits may include seeing a sample of people in their own homes. Visits must be documented: the date, who they spoke to, records reviewed, and actions agreed.

Regulation 80 asks for analysis of aggregated incidents, notifiable incidents, safeguarding matters and complaints, so a quality of care report needs numbers and trends behind it, not just a narrative.

After the inspection

CIW gives initial feedback on the day and more detailed feedback to the Responsible Individual afterwards. CIW says the report is sent within 25 working days and you have 10 working days to comment on factual accuracy. If you think a rating rests on inaccurate or incomplete evidence, ask for a review in writing within 10 working days of receiving the report (2025 ratings regulations).

Reports can include:

• areas for improvement, followed up at the next inspection;
• a priority action notice, CIW's first enforcement step where outcomes need significant improvement, followed by a priority inspection.

Mistakes to avoid

• Keeping evidence in the manager's head or office. If the deputy can't find it at 7pm on a Saturday, CIW won't see it.
• RI visits that happen but aren't written up.
• Treating notifications as optional. CIW holds the notifications you've sent and uses them when planning inspections, so gaps are easy to spot.
• Supervisions that slip to twice a year because the rota is tight.
• Forgetting to update the website after a new report.

How ShiftComplete helps

ShiftComplete was built for England, so be clear about what it does in Wales. Its one-click inspection pack is grouped under CQC's five key questions, not CIW's themes. What goes in it is the dated evidence CIW also asks to see: daily and weekly checks with photos and names, the training matrix, supervisions signed by both people, audits with an action list, incidents with lessons learned, complaints and a full audit trail. You can choose the date range to match an RI visit or a six-monthly quality review.

Rotas show each day, twilight and night period as covered or short, with warnings if someone's DBS, right to work, visa or mandatory training has lapsed. Home care adds visit runs with estimated travel time and planned versus actual reports.

It works alongside your care-records system and doesn't do care plans or medication records. It costs £2.49 per active staff member per month, with no minimum or contract, and the first 60 days are free with no card needed. See how it works for care homes, nursing homes or home care.