CQC ratings explained: how to read a care provider's report

What does CQC do?

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. For home care and live-in care, it:

registers organisations that provide personal care, and checks they are likely to meet the fundamental standards before they start;
monitors services using information from the public, staff, councils, the NHS and the providers themselves;
inspects and assesses services, and publishes reports and ratings;
takes action when care falls short, from requiring improvements to restricting or cancelling a registration.

The fundamental standards are the standards below which care must never fall. They include person-centred care, dignity and respect, consent, safe care, safeguarding from abuse, enough to eat and drink, good governance, enough suitably trained staff, open handling of complaints, and honesty when things go wrong. Providers must also display their CQC rating where people can see it and on their website.

CQC covers England only. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the rules differ, and care is regulated by the Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Wales and the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority.

What CQC regulates in care at home

CQC regulates personal care: physical help with washing, bathing, dressing, eating, drinking, toileting, oral care and care of skin, hair and nails, or prompting with supervision when someone cannot manage these alone. An organisation that employs or manages carers to give this help must be registered.

Some arrangements fall outside CQC’s checks: services offering only companionship or help around the house, introductory agencies that only introduce self-employed carers, and carers employed directly by a family. Our guide to managed or introductory live-in care explains what this means for families.

The five key questions

CQC looks at every service through the same five questions:

Safe: people are protected from abuse and avoidable harm. In home care, look at medicines, staffing, safeguarding and how risks such as falls are managed.
Effective: care achieves good outcomes, helps people keep a good quality of life and is based on the best available evidence. Look at training, consent, nutrition and working with GPs and nurses.
Caring: staff treat people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
Responsive: services are organised to meet people’s needs. Look at care plans, continuity, flexibility and complaints.
Well-led: leadership, management and governance make sure care is high quality and person-centred, with an open, fair culture that learns and improves.

What the four ratings mean

Rating	What CQC says it means
Outstanding	The service is performing exceptionally well
Good	The service is performing well and meeting CQC’s expectations
Requires improvement	The service is not performing as well as it should, and CQC has told it how it must improve
Inadequate	The service is performing badly, and CQC has taken action against the provider

Each service gets an overall rating and a rating for each key question. Newer reports also show percentage scores, to show whether a service sits near the top or the bottom of its rating band; for example, a score of 63% to 87% is good, and 88% or above is outstanding. Some services show no rating, usually because they registered recently and have not yet been assessed.

How to find a provider’s report on the CQC website

A man reads on a laptop at the kitchen table in the evening while his wife takes notes beside him.

Go to cqc.org.uk and choose Find care services.
Type the provider’s name, or your postcode, and search.
Filter by Homecare agencies to see services that provide care at home, including live-in care.
Open the service’s page. Near the top you will see the overall rating, the date the latest report was published and the rating for each key question. The Registered Manager is listed under “Who runs this service”.
Download the full report to read the detail, and use “All inspection reports and timeline” to see earlier reports and the direction of travel.
If you like, choose “Get alerts when we inspect” to hear about future reports.

If you cannot use the website, call CQC on 03000 616161 and ask for help finding a report.

How to read a CQC report for a home care service

Check it is the right service. A company may have several branches, each with its own rating, so check the branch that would provide your care.
Check the dates. Note when the service was last inspected or assessed and when the report was published.
Look at all five key questions, not just the overall rating. For care at home, the safe and well-led ratings are especially telling.
Read the summary, then the detail. Look for what people using the service and their families said.
Look for breaches and action. Reports say whether the provider broke any regulations and what CQC required it to do. Check later reports or updates to see whether things improved.

Then ask the provider about anything you read. A good provider will be open about its report, including any criticism and what it changed as a result.

CQC’s assessment framework and the changes in 2026

Since late 2023, CQC has assessed services using an assessment framework in which each key question is broken down into “quality statements”, describing what good care looks like, alongside “I statements” that reflect what people say matters to them. Evidence is gathered under six categories, including people’s experiences, feedback from staff and partners, observation and processes.

After independent reviews of CQC’s work in 2024, CQC consulted on improving how it assesses and rates services. In 2026 it published draft frameworks written for each sector, including a separate framework for adult social care, and its consultation on them closed on 12 June 2026. CQC has said it plans to publish the final frameworks and start using them from the end of 2026.

For families, the important points stay the same: the five key questions and the four ratings remain, and a rating means the same thing whichever framework produced it.

What an older rating means

CQC decides when to look at a service based on risk and the information it holds, so a service with no concerns may go several years without a new inspection. An independent review of CQC found that, as of July 2024, the average age of ratings across all locations was 3.9 years, and around 19% of the locations CQC can inspect had never been rated.

An older rating is not a warning sign in itself, but it tells you less about how the service is today. If a rating is a few years old, these questions help:

Ask the provider	A reassuring answer	A worrying answer
What has changed since your last inspection?	Specific changes to staff, systems or services, good and bad	“Nothing, really”
How do you check the quality of care yourselves?	Regular audits of care records and medicines, manager visits and feedback surveys, with recent dates	“We would hear if something was wrong”
What did your last survey or feedback show?	Real results, including what people wanted improved	No survey, or only praise
How many complaints have you had this year, and what changed?	A number, examples and the lessons learned	“We never get complaints”
Is the Registered Manager named on CQC still in post?	“Yes”, or a clear account of who manages the service now	Uncertainty about who is in charge

You can also ask to see the provider’s complaints procedure and a blank copy of its care plan, so you know what to expect.

Other sources of reassurance

Two older men chat and laugh across a fence at their allotment on a spring morning.

A CQC rating is one piece of the picture. Others include:

The assessment visit: how the provider listens to the person and answers your questions.
The provider’s own checks: audits of care records and medicines, supervision and visits to the home by managers.
Professionals: district nurses, GPs and social workers often know local providers well.
Council quality monitoring: councils check providers they contract with.
Memberships: belonging to a local or national care association shows engagement with the sector.
Recent, specific reviews, and how the provider responds to criticism.

If you are worried about a service

Raise it with the manager. Many concerns are put right quickly once the right person knows.
Make a formal complaint in writing if needed, with dates, names and what you would like to happen. Keep copies.
Go to the Ombudsman if you are not satisfied with the final response, or have had no response within a reasonable time. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (0300 061 0614) looks at complaints about adult social care, including privately funded care, usually within 12 months of you knowing about the problem.
Tell CQC about poor care you have seen or experienced, using the Give feedback on care form, even if you have also complained elsewhere.
If someone is at risk of abuse or neglect, contact the council’s adult safeguarding team straight away, or call 999 in an emergency. See safeguarding and scams.

A short example of a first complaint:

Dear [manager’s name], I am writing about the care my father, [name], receives from your service. On [dates], [what happened]. This has caused [effect]. Please could you look into this, tell me what you will do to put it right, and reply within [14] days. I would be happy to meet to discuss it. Yours sincerely, [name, relationship, phone number]

What to do next

Look up each provider you are considering on the CQC website.
Read the full report, check the date and note any questions.
Ask each provider to talk you through its report and what has changed since.
Use the checklist in how to choose a care provider to compare them.

How we can help

Day and Nightcare (Day and Nightcare Live In Limited) is registered with CQC and rated Good. You can read our report on the CQC website, and you are welcome to ask us any questions about it. We provide fully managed live-in care anywhere in England from £1,550 a week, and home care visits, waking nights and sleep-ins across Oxfordshire, and 24-hour care with carers working in shifts anywhere in England. Call 01865 715780 to arrange a free initial assessment.

Common questions

Does CQC check introductory agencies and self-employed carers?

No. CQC regulates organisations that provide personal care and have an ongoing role in directing it. Introductory agencies that only introduce self-employed carers, and carers employed directly by a family, do not have to register, so CQC does not inspect or rate them. If you use one of these arrangements, the checks CQC would make, such as on training, supervision and medicines, become the family's responsibility to ask about.

How often does CQC inspect home care services?

There is no fixed timetable. CQC decides when to assess a service based on risk and on the information it holds, including feedback from the public, staff and other organisations, and what providers must tell it. Services where there are concerns are usually looked at sooner, and CQC can inspect at any time. A service that is performing well may not be re-inspected for several years.

Can a provider be rated good overall but requires improvement in one area?

Yes. The overall rating is built from the ratings for the five key questions, so a service can be good overall while one question, such as safe or well-led, is rated requires improvement. Read that section of the report to see what CQC found, then ask the provider what it has changed since. A clear, specific answer, with evidence, is reassuring; a vague one is not.

What is a Registered Manager?

A Registered Manager is a person registered with CQC to manage a regulated service day to day. Together with the provider, they are legally responsible for meeting the regulations. The name of the Registered Manager appears on the service's CQC page. If the manager named there has left, ask the provider who is managing the service now and whether they have applied to register.

How do I tell CQC about care I have received or seen?

Use the Give feedback on care form on the CQC website, or call CQC on 03000 616161. You can share good experiences as well as concerns. CQC cannot take forward individual complaints on your behalf, but it uses what people tell it to decide when, where and what to inspect. To resolve a complaint, go to the provider first, then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Sources and further information

Prepared by the Day and Nightcare care team. Last updated 30 October 2026; sources last checked 30 October 2026. This guide is general information about care in England, not financial, legal or medical advice.