Four in ten older people's care homes in England show a rating over five years old

The rating on the door is often years old

The CQC rating shown by 4,438 older people's care homes in England is more than five years old, according to an analysis by What Care Costs (opens in a new tab), a care-fee comparison website. By the analysis's count, that is 40% of the 10,980 homes it covered, with 153,401 of 423,945 registered beds.

The rating is the main public signal of a home's quality. Commissioners use it to place people and families use it to choose a home. When it is five years old, neither can be sure it still describes the care.

The analysis draws on the CQC's own Care Directory with ratings dataset, dated 4 August 2026. It covers older people's care homes in England only, not home care or supported living.

Hundreds of homes still show a poor rating from over five years ago

The sharpest problem, What Care Costs found, sits in 391 homes rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate that have not been re-rated in more than five years. Together they account for 14,445 beds, according to the analysis.

Nobody reading those ratings can tell whether the home has improved, stayed the same or got worse. A commissioner placing someone there has no recent public finding to go on. A provider that has turned such a home around is still showing families the old verdict.

The analysis itself cautions that an old poor rating does not mean a home is still failing, only that no new finding has been published. The same logic runs the other way: an old good rating cannot show the home is still good.

The typical rating was more than four years old in August

The median rating across England was 4.1 years old, according to What Care Costs. The analysis found 6,845 homes, or 62%, were relying on a rating more than three years old, and 2,399 homes on one more than seven years old.

A further 550 homes, covering 22,183 beds, had no published rating at all, the analysis found. Some will be newly registered homes not yet inspected, but the analysis does not say how many.

The oldest ratings are in the East of England, not London

The East of England had the largest share, the analysis found, with 46.8% of homes showing a rating over five years old. London had the freshest ratings, at 30%, according to What Care Costs.

Among council areas with at least 60 care homes, What Care Costs ranked Stoke-on-Trent highest: 61.9% of its 63 homes, with a median rating 6.6 years old. Cambridgeshire was close behind at 61.7%, by the same analysis.

Councils commissioning care in those two areas are leaning on older evidence than anywhere else on the list.

An old rating is not proof that care has slipped

What Care Costs gives several reasons the ratings have aged. The CQC has changed its assessment approach and reduced its inspection programme. Homes offering several regulated services are sometimes rated service by service rather than as a whole.

A comparison website's ranking cannot show that care in any one home has declined, and no response from the CQC has been published alongside the figures.

What it does show is that the public rating, for a large part of the older people's care home stock in England, is describing the past. When a council places someone in a home still showing a poor rating from more than five years ago, what is its judgement of quality actually resting on?