How to read an inspection report for an elderly-care facility

Who publishes inspection reports for nursing homes and nursing wards in Israel, what each kind of report contains, how the scores and the new report forms work, and how to find a report on a facility card. A guide for families.

An inspection report is an official document in which a government ministry records an inspection carried out at an elderly-care facility. On the facility card we show which reports the ministry has published, the date of each inspection and where to open the report. This portal does not rate facilities and does not retell what a report says: the report is read at the source, and this guide only explains how it is built.

Who publishes reports, and which ones

The Ministry of Health inspects nursing and geriatric wards (nursing, complex nursing, and mentally frail wards) and publishes two kinds of report: the unannounced inspection and the inspection for licensing. Both are described below.
The Ministry of Welfare (Senior Citizens Administration) inspects old-age homes and sheltered housing. It publishes reports only for comprehensive inspections of old-age homes.
Sheltered housing: no reports. As of 3 November 2026 the Ministry of Welfare's list page says: "טרם ניתן רישיון לבתי הדיור המוגן. הנושא ממתין לאישור תקנות הדיור המוגן בכנסת" (no licence has yet been granted to sheltered housing; the matter awaits the Knesset's approval of the sheltered-housing regulations).
Clubs, supportive communities, day centres, respite care as a separate frame: the ministries do not publish inspection reports for these kinds of place. A missing report on a website says nothing about the place itself; it only means the ministry does not publish such reports.

The same campus may have reports from both ministries, depending on the type of ward.

The Ministry of Health's unannounced inspection

An inspection without advance notice, officially "בקרה להבטחת טיפול ראוי" (a check to ensure proper care). The report is short, 4 to 6 pages in Hebrew. Among other things it covers how many patients were on the wards compared with what the licence allows, staff on the shift, cleanliness and conditions, personal care, meals, safety, use of restraints, leisure activity, dignity and privacy, and the views of residents and families.

The report comes in two forms:

The earlier form (up to the end of June 2026): a covering letter with the main findings, then short sections by topic. There are no scores.
The new form (from July 2026): a table of seven topics with points: staff (up to 10), the resident's environment (15), personal care (20), food and drink (15), safety (20), leisure (15), and satisfaction of residents and families (5). Each topic has a column "עמידה בתנאי סף" (whether the threshold conditions were met: yes or no), and the last line is "סה"כ ניקוד", a total out of 100. A section on each topic follows the table.

The Ministry of Health's inspection for licensing

The long, detailed report: 20 to 40 pages in Hebrew (officially "בקרת רישוי"). It lists the inspection team and, for each professional field (medicine, nursing, nutrition, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work, pharmacy, environmental health), what was checked and what must be corrected. This report also comes in two forms:

The earlier form: a score from 1 to 6 for each professional field separately, not for the facility as a whole. The scale is in the table "הציון / טווח הציון / הערכה מילולית": 1 failed (1–65), 2 needs much improvement (66–72), 3 needs improvement (73–79), 4 good (80–86), 5 almost very good (87–93), 6 very good (94–100).
The new form (from the end of August 2025): chapters, each with a maximum number of points and the points received. The last line is "סה"כ ניקוד", which cannot exceed 100. The 1–6 scale no longer appears. The earlier form remains only at a few geriatric hospitals.

The Ministry of Welfare's comprehensive inspection report

A report of 24 to 35 pages in Hebrew, in the form of a questionnaire: for each topic there are questions and answers "כן / לא / לא נבדק בביקור" (yes / no / not checked at the visit). The topics include nutrition, unusual incidents, infrastructure and equipment, cleanliness, occupancy, staffing, management, the care plan, safety, emergency readiness and cultural activity. A topic that was not checked at the visit is marked "לא נבדק במועד זה".

This report has no score or points, and no separate section of conclusions: at the end of each topic there is a general remark by the inspector. The Ministry of Welfare publishes reports gradually. According to the ministry's page, the inspections shown are comprehensive ones carried out from July 2022 onward, and in practice almost all the published reports date from 2024 or later.

What the scores mean, and what they do not

Scores and grades belong to the inspecting ministry. They are printed in its official PDF, and the family sees them there. The portal adds no score of its own, does not rank homes and does not compare them; it only explains how a report is built. A few rules for reading:

A grade from 1 to 6 and a "סה"כ ניקוד" out of 100 are different systems. Do not compare them.
The points in an unannounced inspection and in an inspection for licensing refer to different topics.
Do not infer a ranking of a facility from a single report.

Where to find the report on the portal

On the facility card, in the "Ministry inspections" block, you will find:

the sentence "Since , the Ministry of Health has inspected this place N times". The number comes from the ministry's register, and the reports under it are those the ministry has published;
the latest inspection of each kind: "The Ministry of Health's latest unannounced inspection", "The Ministry of Health's latest inspection for licensing", "The Welfare Ministry's latest comprehensive inspection", each with a date;
next to each report: "Open with the cheat sheet", "copy" (a copy of the official report) and "original on the ministry's website";
"All inspections (N)": a list of all the inspections, each with a date and a link to the original on the ministry's website.

The cheat sheet shows the report next to a table of its sections: the heading as printed in the report, a translation, and what a family learns from each section. On a computer the report opens beside the table. On a phone you get the table and an "Open the report (PDF)" button.

If there are no reports, the card says so: "The ministry does not publish inspection reports for this type of place", or that no inspection reports have been published since a given date, or that we did not find inspection reports for this place in the ministries' lists.

Searching inside the report and copying from it

Search: each heading in the cheat sheet has a search word. Press "Copy the search word", press Ctrl+F in the report (on a Mac: Cmd+F), paste the word and press Enter to go to the next match. The word may appear several times.
Why one word: Chrome's PDF viewer stores the words of a Hebrew line in reverse order, so a whole heading is not found by search, while a single word is.
Copying text: text copied out of a PDF may carry invisible direction marks, and numbers and signs may land in the wrong place. Read numbers in the report itself, not in copied text.

How to read the report properly

Date: the report reflects the situation on the day of the visit. A deficiency noted may already have been corrected since.
Number of inspections: how many inspections have been published in recent years. The number says how often the facility was inspected, not how good the care is.
A snapshot, not a ranking: a report records one day. The portal does not rate facilities and does not make recommendations.
Read the source: what appears on the card is only a pointer. A decision should rest on the full document and on a visit to the facility.

Sources

The description of the report forms rests on reading the reports themselves, as of 5 November 2026.

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