How providers must display ratings

Ratings help people to find out about the quality of health and care services. We rate services as either outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Services that must display their ratings

If you have received an overall quality rating after an inspection, you must display it by law to meet Regulation 20A.

How to check your rating

If you're not sure, check the information on your service page. Service providers have 2 types of page on our website:

• provider page: for the organisation that runs the service. This might be an NHS trust or a company that runs care homes.
• location (or 'premises') page: for the place where services are delivered. This might be a hospital, a care home or a GP surgery. All the locations run by a provider are listed on its provider page.

You can use the 'search for a health or social care service' box on our homepage to search for your provider or location pages. You can also use the search box on our find care services page.

If your service has not yet been inspected, you will not have a rating to display.

Services we do not rate

Some types of service are exempt from CQC’s legal duty to give a rating. These include:

• primary dental services
• children’s homes
• sexual assault referral centres
• blood and transplant services
• hyperbaric oxygen therapy services
• medical laboratories

Instead, we will provide a judgement to reflect whether a service is meeting the regulations. All health and social care providers that are registered and regulated by CQC may use 'Regulated by' graphics to show that they are legally registered and inspected under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. These graphics are particularly useful if your service does not receive a rating.

What must be displayed and where

You need to display ratings if our webpage for your service shows one of these ratings: outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

You need to display your ratings:

• in the place where you deliver services (the location)
• on websites where you describe your service.

We provide posters to download and print, and an online widget to use on your website, although you can use your own materials if you wish.

You must display your CQC ratings on posters at premises and on websites no later than 21 calendar days after we have published them on our website.

You still need to do this even if you have submitted a request for a review of ratings.

You may add a note to your display of ratings to explain that you have asked for a review, but the ratings must still be clear and conspicuous.

If you have been rated as inadequate or requires improvement

We encourage you to display information about what you are doing to improve your service alongside your ratings.

All posters that CQC provide will include a space for you to tell people how they can find out more about how you are improving, or what you have changed, since the rating was published. We strongly encourage you to use this box. You must only write within the box provided, but you can provide additional information next to the poster as long as it does not detract from it.

Regulatory history

If you take over an existing location from another provider, or provide the same service from a new address, our website will display the location’s ‘regulatory history’ (its rating and inspection report under a previous provider or from the previous address).

If you choose to display an inherited rating, you must make clear that it was awarded to the previous provider. You don’t legally have to display the rating awarded to the previous provider. We may take action against a provider that displays false or misleading ratings information. See guidance on continuation of regulatory history.

What you must display, by service type:

• acute hospitals (NHS)
• acute hospitals (independent)
• ambulances (NHS)
• community-based adult social care services, including homecare (domiciliary care), supported living, Shared Lives
• care homes (residential)
• community health services
• GP practices
• hospices
• independent doctors and clinics
• mental health services (NHS)
• mental health services (independent), including substance misuse services
• NHS 111 services
• online-only primary care services
• urgent care centres and GP out-of-hours services

Where to find the CQC widget and posters

For instructions on how to find the CQC widget and download posters see how to use the CQC widget and posters.

Optional graphics

In addition to meeting the legal requirements, we encourage you to celebrate your rating if you are rated as outstanding or good.

There are a number of other ways to publicise your ratings to people using your service and the wider community. We have produced promotional graphics that you can use on websites, emails, large printed banners and in brochures.

These promotional graphics are optional, and they are in addition to the statutory requirement for providers to display ratings at their locations and on their websites. They do not replace the widgets and posters that you may already be using.

The outstanding society