How we compare ratings across four regulators
The UK does not have one care regulator. It has four, each with its own inspection framework and its own vocabulary. Any single UK-wide ranking has to make a judgement call, so here is exactly what ours is.
What each regulator publishes
| Nation | Regulator | Its rating scale | Services | With a rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | Care Quality Commission | Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement, Inadequate | 29,481 | 22,929 |
| Scotland | Care Inspectorate | Graded 1–6: Excellent, Very good, Good, Adequate, Weak, Unsatisfactory | 3,871 | 3,382 |
| Wales | Care Inspectorate Wales | Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor — scored per theme, not overall | 1,837 | 1,125 |
| Northern Ireland | RQIA | No published summary rating | 1,035 | 0 |
The mapping
Every page shows the regulator’s own words first. The four-point band exists only so that lists can be sorted and areas summarised. It maps like this:
| Our band | England | Scotland | Wales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excellent | Outstanding | Excellent (6), Very good (5) | Excellent |
| Good | Good | Good (4) | Good |
| Needs improvement | Requires improvement | Adequate (3), Weak (2) | Adequate |
| Poor | Inadequate | Unsatisfactory (1) | Poor |
What the mapping cannot do
- It is not an equivalence. A Scottish “Very good” was not awarded against the same criteria as an English “Outstanding”. The band tells you roughly where a service sits within its own nation’s distribution, not that two services in different nations are interchangeable.
- Wales has no overall rating. CIW scores separate themes. Where a Welsh service has theme scores, we take the lowest as the band, which is deliberately conservative.
- Northern Ireland has no ratings at all. RQIA publishes inspection reports, not summary grades. NI services are listed with their details and inspection dates and are excluded from every rating comparison on this site.
- Scotland’s band comes from its lowest key-question grade, which is the Care Inspectorate’s own convention for describing a service’s weakest area.
Why we show the inspection date so prominently
A rating describes one visit. Services change hands, change managers and change character between inspections, and the gap between visits can run to several years. A rating from 2017 is a much weaker signal than a rating from last month, so we put the age of the inspection next to every rating rather than burying it.
What we do not do
We do not rank homes by anything other than the regulator’s published data. There are no user reviews, no sponsored placements and no paid listings. Nothing on a page changes because an operator asked.