Reports · CQC sector reports · Oct 2026
The State of Care Homes in England
An analysis of the 14,913 residential and nursing homes registered with CQC in England: how they are rated, where they fall short, and how long since they were last seen.
The numbers
14,913 care homes are registered with the CQC in England: 10,384 residential and 4,529 nursing, with 489,327 registered beds between them. 13,634 (91.4%) hold a current overall rating under one of the CQC's two rating models, 9,200 made by inspection and 4,434 under the assessment model introduced in late 2023. The other 1,279 have no current rating.
Most rated homes are Good or Outstanding. The 2,385 that fall below Good (17.5%) have one thing in common: 98.2% of them are failing on Well-led, more than on any other key question. 92.9% fail on Safe, where medication, risk and infection control are the recurring concerns.
Of rated homes below Good
2,385 of 13,634 rated homes are Requires improvement (2,279) or Inadequate (106).
Beds in homes below Good
17.5% of 489,327 registered beds.
Not seen in five years, or ever
1,239 never inspected or assessed; 4,739 last seen more than five years ago.
How they are rated
- Outstanding628 · 4.6%
- Good10,621 · 77.9%
- Requires improvement2,279 · 16.7%
- Inadequate106 · 0.8%
When they were last seen
- Never inspected or assessed1,239 · 8.3%
- 5 or more years ago4,739 · 31.8%
- 3 to 5 years ago4,097 · 27.5%
- 2 to 3 years ago1,198 · 8.0%
- Within 2 years3,640 · 24.4%
Key findings
One in six rated care homes falls below Good
2,385 of 13,634 rated homes (17.5%): 2,279 Requires improvement and 106 Inadequate.
Nursing homes carry the highest risk
19.9% of rated nursing homes fall below Good, against 16.5% of residential homes and 13.0% of home care agencies.
85,710 beds sit in homes rated below Good
4,183 of them are in the 106 homes rated Inadequate. A further 51,649 are in unrated homes.
Leadership is where homes fail
98.2% of below-Good homes fail on Well-led and 92.9% on Safe. Caring is the strongest domain: 22.5% of below-Good homes fail on it.
The assessment model finds more problems
26.5% of homes rated under the assessment model are below Good, against 13.1% of those rated by inspection. The CQC assessed riskier homes first, so the two are not like for like.
Four in ten homes have not been seen in five years
5,978 homes (40.1%) have never been inspected or assessed or were last seen more than five years ago. Of 529 homes registered in 2023, 19% still have not had a first visit.
Outstanding is the oldest rating
57.0% of Outstanding ratings are more than five years old, against 39.3% of Good ratings.
Where a home is changes the odds
West Midlands has the highest below-Good rate of any region (21.9%) and the North East the lowest (8.2%). Rochdale leads the councils at 35.8%.
Figures are Bridgehead’s analysis of the CQC’s published register and ratings, as at 6 November 2026. Below Good means a rating of Requires improvement or Inadequate. Services that have closed are excluded. The full report sets out the method, the regional and council tables and the sources.
The series
The same data, cut by sector
- The State of Home Care in England62% of home care agencies not inspected in five years, or ever
- The State of Primary Care in England60% of NHS GP practices not inspected in five years, or ever
- The State of Aesthetic Clinics in England67% of aesthetic clinics not inspected in five years, or ever
The State of Adult Social Care in England covers every adult social care service together, and the sector reports index compares the four side by side.
From the same team
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bamboo: care marketing software
bamboo builds campaigns from a home's CQC profile, ranks it against comparable homes nearby each week and gathers its reviews in one place. It is our own software, free to start.
Headland Care Consulting: condition-specific care frameworks
Headland designs consultant-led, condition-specific care frameworks for UK care homes. It was founded by Dr Sheel Mehta and William Walter, and is a separate venture from Bridgehead.
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