CompareMyCare

Glossary

What the terms on this site mean.

Rating tiers

We group homes into seven tiers using their CQC ratings. Within each tier homes are listed A to Z.

Why we use tiers instead of a score

The five key questions

CQC rates every home on five questions, as well as giving an overall rating.

Each is rated Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement or Inadequate.

Rating age

CQC doesn't inspect homes on a fixed timetable. It goes back when it thinks there is a risk, for example after a complaint or a change of manager. Homes with no warning signs can go many years between inspections. In England, half of all care home ratings are more than 3.9 years old.

We show when each rating was published and flag any that are more than 5 years old. An old rating doesn't move a home down a list. It does mean you should ask the home what has changed since.

Inherited rating

When a home changes owner it gets a new CQC registration. CQC usually carries the old rating across until it inspects again. These ratings are marked as inherited.

Not yet rated

A home that has registered recently, or changed owner without keeping its old rating, may not have been inspected yet.

Nursing and residential homes

A nursing home has registered nurses on site and can look after people with more complex health needs. A residential care home gives personal care, such as help with washing, dressing and eating, but doesn't provide nursing. Some homes offer both.

Who a home cares for

These are the groups a home is registered with CQC to support, such as older people or people with dementia. They show what a home is allowed to provide. They don't guarantee specialist care, so ask the home how it supports people with those needs.

Registered manager

By law every care home must have a manager registered with CQC, who is responsible for how the home is run day to day. We show when CQC's register lists no registered manager for a home. This can happen when a manager leaves and the home is recruiting, or when a new manager has started but CQC hasn't finished registering them yet. It's worth asking who is in charge and how long the post has been vacant.

Change of owner

When a care home is sold or taken over, the new provider has to register it with CQC again. We show the date of the current registration and link to the previous one. We mark a home as having a new owner when CQC links it to a previous registration in the last three years. A rating from before the change describes the home under its old owner.

Care home staffing

Skills for Care estimates how many posts in care homes are vacant in each council area. The vacancy rate is the number of vacant posts as a share of all posts, filled and vacant. The figures cover the whole area, not individual homes, and come from the 2024-25 workforce estimates. Ask any home how many staff are on shift and how often it uses agency staff.

Standard by standard

Under its newer way of assessing services, CQC scores each home against up to 33 standards (it calls them quality statements), such as safeguarding, medicines or staffing. Each is scored from 1 to 4: significant shortfalls, some shortfalls, good or exceptional. We list any scored below good or exceptional, exactly as CQC published them. Homes assessed the older way don't have these scores.

Earlier ratings

CQC publishes every past rating for a home under its current registration. We show them so you can see whether a home has improved or slipped. "Inspected, no new rating" means CQC visited, usually to check something specific, without changing the rating. When a home changes owner it gets a new registration, and the older ratings stay with the old one on the CQC website.

CQC scores

Since 2024 CQC has been moving to a new way of assessing services. Under it, each key question gets a percentage score as well as a rating, built from scores for the individual standards CQC checks. Homes assessed the older way don't have scores. We show the scores exactly as CQC publishes them. We don't use them to rank homes, because most homes don't have them yet.

What councils pay

These figures show what a council spent on average per week for each care home place it arranged in 2024-25, including what residents contributed towards their own care. They come from the Department of Health and Social Care. They are not the price a home charges people who pay for themselves: each home sets its own fees, and these are often higher.

Nursing figures don't include NHS-funded nursing care (FNC), a flat weekly amount the NHS pays straight to the home for residents who need nursing. Ask any home for its current weekly fee and what it includes.

Food hygiene rating

Council food safety officers inspect care home kitchens, the same way they inspect restaurants, and give a rating from 0 (urgent improvement necessary) to 5 (very good). The ratings are published by the Food Standards Agency. They cover food hygiene only, not the quality of care, and are separate from CQC.

The Food Standards Agency doesn't record which CQC home a kitchen belongs to, so we match them by postcode and name or address. We only show a rating when we're confident it's the same place. If a home has no food hygiene rating here, check the Food Standards Agency website.

Homes registered twice

A few buildings are registered by two companies at once. We show one page per building, following CQC's guidance on which registration to use.