Which CQC key question do community care services most often fall short on?
Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led ratings for community adult social care locations, from CQC's latest ratings file of 1 October 2026, with the home care and supported living split.
Source: CQC open data, 1 October 2026, aggregated by Care Upkeep. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains information from the Care Quality Commission.
19%below Good on Well-led
15%below Good on Safe
3%below Good on Caring
714Outstanding on Caring
Well-led: 2,274 locations (19% of those rated) are below Good. Safe is next at 1,801 (15%). Caring is the strongest at 300 (3%).
Caring also has the most Outstanding ratings (714), followed by Well-led (588). Well-led is where services are most often either very good or not good enough.
Ratings by key question
Location-level ratings, "Community based adult social care services" category, excluding care homes and unrated locations. 12,038 rated locations.
OutstandingGoodRequires improvementInadequate
Below Good, by key question
Requires improvement plus Inadequate.
Key question
Outstanding
Good
Requires improvement
Inadequate
Below Good
Safe
79
10,142
1,700
101
15.0%
Effective
194
10,657
823
41
7.4%
Caring
714
10,758
288
12
2.5%
Responsive
475
10,662
627
20
5.5%
Well-led
588
9,074
2,149
125
19.1%
Overall
584
9,779
1,586
89
13.9%
Home care and supported living, overall rating
Where the ratings file records the service group. Many locations are recorded under the generic "Overall" group and are not split.
OutstandingGoodRequires improvementInadequate
What this means for a policy set
Well-led is assessed against Regulation 17, good governance. The governance and quality assurance policy is one of the eight documents CQC asks every new provider for, and it is the one that has to describe a working system: audits with a frequency and an owner, feedback and what changed because of it, records kept securely. Read why Well-led is where ratings drop.
Definitions. "Home care and supported living" means active, non-dormant CQC locations whose service type includes "Domiciliary care service" or "Supported living service", in England, in the CQC active locations file dated 1 October 2026. A provider is the registered legal entity; a location is a registered base. "No rating yet" combines CQC's "Not yet rated" and "Not Rated" values. Figures are aggregates; no provider is named.
Who this is not for. Care homes: their key question ratings are in the residential category, not here. Nothing on this page describes any individual provider.
Questions
Which CQC key question has the most "requires improvement" ratings in home care?
Well-led, with 2,149 Requires improvement and 125 Inadequate ratings among community adult social care locations on 1 October 2026.
Which key question do home care services do best on?
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