In short: our lists are ranked by the Care Quality Commission’s overall rating and how recent it is, then by distance. Nobody can pay to move up.
Where the data comes from
Every home care agency and care home on The Care Panel comes from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) register, the official list of care services in England. We update it from CQC’s published data, which is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Each page shows the date of the data it uses.
How the ranked lists work
- CQC overall rating: Outstanding first, then Good, Requires improvement and Inadequate. Services CQC has not yet rated come last, which is not a judgement on their quality.
- How recent the rating is: within each rating, services CQC rated in the last two years come first, then those rated in the last five years, then older ratings. An Outstanding rating more than five years old, or one CQC carried over from a previous provider, is ranked alongside Good services, because the service may have changed since.
- Distance: within each rating, the nearest first. For home care agencies we measure from the town centre to the agency’s registered office, because carers travel to you. For care homes we measure to the home.
Home care agencies appear on a town page when their office is within 5 miles of the town centre. London borough pages list the agencies registered in that borough. Agencies often cover a wider area, so the same agency can appear on several town pages.
What we show and why
- Rating date: CQC does not inspect every service every year. We show when each rating was published, and on profiles we flag ratings more than four years old so you know to ask what has changed.
- Recently inspected: the latest ratings CQC has published in the area.
- Specialisms: as registered with CQC, such as dementia or learning disabilities.
Paid features, kept separate
Providers can become members, which lets them add their own photos, logo, description, prices, services and availability, and receive enquiries; Featured members also appear in a separate box marked “Featured providers · Paid placement”. Text written by a provider is labelled “in the provider’s own words”, and prices it publishes are labelled “from the provider”. None of this changes the order of the ranked list. How we make money.
Spotted a mistake?
Ratings and registrations come from CQC, so corrections to those need to go to CQC. If something on our pages does not match the CQC register, email us and we will check it.
How family reviews work
Reviews on The Care Panel are written by families and clients, and are separate from CQC ratings. They never change the order of our ranked lists, which follow CQC ratings and distance only.
- Every review is tied to a real email address. Families we passed an enquiry for get a private link about a month later. Anyone else must click a link we email them before their review goes live.
- Providers can invite reviews from people who have used their service. Those reviews are labelled “invited by the provider”. Providers cannot edit, hide or remove any review, or pay for one.
- We publish negative reviews as well as positive ones. We only remove reviews that are not genuine, are abusive, include personal details, or are about a different service.
- One review per person per service. A newer review from the same person replaces the older one.
Spotted a review that breaks these rules? Email us and we will check it.