Cal. HSC § 1421

This is the official text of Cal. HSC § 1421, part of California’s Health and Safety Code — covers public health, hospitals, controlled substances, and environmental health standards.

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Official statutory text

(a) Any duly authorized officer, employee, or agent of the state department may enter and inspect any long-term health care facility, including, but not limited to, interviewing residents and reviewing records, at any time to enforce any provision of this chapter.

(b) Patients shall be treated with consideration, respect, and full recognition of dignity during the course of the investigation or inspection.

(c) Inspections conducted pursuant to complaints filed with the state department shall be conducted in such a manner as to ensure maximum effectiveness while respecting the rights of patients in the facility. No advance notice shall be given of any inspection conducted pursuant to this chapter unless previously and specifically authorized by the director or required by federal law.

(d) Any public employee giving any advance notice in violation of this section shall be deemed to be in violation of subdivision (t) of Section 19572 of the Government Code and shall be suspended from all duties without pay for a period determined by the director.

(e) Except as otherwise specified by law, any duly authorized officer, employee, or agent of the state department shall not limit the scope of practice of registered nurses acting under Section 2725 of the Business and Professions Code. Further, these agents shall not prohibit the performing of functions by registered nurses when those nurses are performing under standardized procedures, where their activity is consistent with the scope of nursing practice, as set forth in Section 2725 of the Business and Professions Code.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.