Insights
National patterns & regional findings
Live analysis across all 65,278 rated adult social care locations in England.
Finding 1 · oversight
The inspection void
Of the 65,177 registered nursing, residential and domiciliary locations, 81% have never been inspected by the CQC, or not been inspected in over five years.
Finding 2 · geography
The North-South divide
Yorkshire & Humberside has the highest inadequate rate of any English region. Counterintuitively, London — with the most locations — has the lowest inadequate rate at just 3.1%.
Finding 3 · care type
Nursing homes are twice as likely to be inadequate
Nursing home residents — the most medically complex and vulnerable — are in settings where 6% are rated Inadequate, more than double the 2.5% rate in domiciliary care.
Finding 4 · local authorities
Crisis hotspots vs excellence clusters
Halton — a small borough between Liverpool and Warrington — has an inadequate rate of 13.6%, four times the national average. Meanwhile South Gloucestershire and Devon anchor a South West excellence cluster.
Highest inadequate rate (min. 50 locations)
- Halton13.6%
- Portsmouth12.4%
- Torbay12%
- Newham10.5%
- Slough9.6%
- Liverpool8.9%
- Hackney8.8%
- Hartlepool8.8%
- Knowsley8%
- Barnsley8%
Highest outstanding rate (min. 50 locations)
- South Gloucestershire13%
- Kensington and Chelsea12.9%
- Trafford9.9%
- Suffolk9.7%
- Wigan9.2%
- Devon9.2%
- Plymouth9%
- Windsor and Maidenhead7.6%
- Nottinghamshire7.4%
- Hammersmith and Fulham7.1%
Finding 5 · systemic mediocrity
The “below Good” crisis zones
Looking at Inadequate + Requires Improvement combined reveals a different picture: areas where roughly one in three providers fall below the basic Good standard — a systemic problem invisible in Inadequate counts alone.
Highest combined below-Good rate (min. 100 locations)
- Walsall35.3%
- Medway34.8%
- Slough34.6%
- Portsmouth34.3%
- Luton34.3%
- Norfolk34.2%
- Bexley33.3%
- Wolverhampton33%
- Southwark32.1%
- West Northamptonshire32%