How we rate
Overall ratings
Most of our assessment reports include an overall rating. You can use these to help compare services and make choices about care.
There are 4 ratings that we give to health and social care services:
Outstanding
The service is performing exceptionally well.
Good
The service is performing well and meeting our expectations.
Requires improvement
The service is not performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.
Inadequate
The service is performing badly and we've taken action against the person or organisation that runs it.
Key question and core service ratings
In addition, we give a rating for each of our 5 key questions.
We also give ratings for the types of services that acute hospitals, specialist mental health services and community health services provide. This includes both NHS and private or independent services.
For example, as well as giving an acute hospital an overall rating, we will give them ratings for services such as maternity or critical care.
Other types of providers may receive ratings for the different services they deliver, but not an overall rating. For example, a care home that also provides homecare in the community will not be given an overall rating.
Services without ratings
Not all the services listed on our website have ratings.
This is because:
- We don't have the legal power to rate some kinds of services, such as dental practices.
- Some services may have registered with us, but have not been assessed yet.
- Some old reports were written before the ratings were introduced.
How we score
We give percentage scores as well as ratings in our newer assessment reports. This is to help show whether a service is at the upper end of a rating or nearer the lower end.
The scores for each rating are:
- 88 to 100% - Outstanding
- 63 to 87% - Good
- 39 to 62% - Requires improvement
- 38% or lower - Inadequate