How we rank care homes
Every rating on Compare My Care comes from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We don't add our own scores, reviews or paid placements. This page explains exactly how homes are grouped and ordered.
Where the data comes from
CQC publishes the register of every care home in England, and the latest rating for each, as open data every month. This build uses CQC's files dated 1 September 2026. We include every active location that CQC marks as a care home (with or without nursing). Dormant registrations are left out.
Some buildings are registered twice, when two companies share responsibility for one home. Following CQC's guidance we show one page per building (CQC's "primary" registration). If that registration has no rating yet, we use its partner's rating.
What CQC rates
CQC rates each home Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement or Inadequate overall, and separately on five key questions: is it safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?
Why there's no single score
We looked at the data before deciding. Across 13,550 rated homes there are only 130 different combinations of the five ratings, and 62% of homes are rated Good on every one. Any score built from these ratings would give thousands of homes the same number, and would suggest a precision that isn't there. CQC itself is moving away from numerical scores in its new assessment framework.
Rating tiers
Instead, homes are grouped into tiers using only their CQC ratings:
| Tier | Rule | Homes |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding | Rated Outstanding overall | 617 |
| Good, with Outstanding areas | Good overall and Outstanding in at least one key question | 634 |
| Good | Good overall and in every key question | 8,465 |
| Good, with an area to improve | Good overall but Requires improvement or Inadequate in at least one key question | 1,481 |
| Requires improvement | Rated Requires improvement overall | 2,257 |
| Inadequate | Rated Inadequate overall | 96 |
| Not yet rated | Newly registered, or CQC has not yet published a rating | 793 |
A Good home with a concern in any key question sits below Good homes with no concerns, even if it is also Outstanding somewhere else. Within a tier, homes are listed alphabetically. They are not ranked against each other, because the ratings don't separate them. On any area page you can re-sort by name, size, how recently each home was rated, or distance from your postcode. You can also filter by nursing care, the groups a home supports, and minimum tier.
Old ratings
Half of care home ratings are more than 4.3 years old, and 45% are more than 5 years old. Outstanding ratings are the oldest of all. CQC decides when to inspect based on risk, so a home's rating can stay unchanged for years through no fault of its own. We show the date and age of every rating and add a note to ratings over 5 years old. Age never affects a home's tier or its position.
Where a rating was carried over from a previous registration, for example after a change of owner, CQC marks it as "inherited" and so do we.
What we don't cover
- Fees. CQC doesn't publish them, so ask each home directly.
- Reviews. We don't publish reviews or star ratings from residents or families.
- Home care agencies and supported living. These may be added later.
Updates and corrections
We rebuild the site when CQC publishes new data, normally monthly. If something looks wrong, see corrections. Changes to a rating can only come from CQC. Always read the latest report on the CQC website before making a decision.
Compare My Care is published by Flouri App Limited. It is independent and is not affiliated with CQC.