The composite, explained
The Quality Score, in plain English.
A single number from 0 to 100 that summarises four signals about a care home. It's computed at read time, never stored, and exactly the same logic runs for every home on the platform.
The four signals
The Quality Score is a weighted average of four inputs:
CQC overall rating
Outstanding = 100, Good = 85, Requires Improvement = 50, Not yet rated = 35, Inadequate = 20.
Verified family reviews
Average rating ÷ 5, weighted by verified review count (capped at 20).
Provider transparency
Boolean: fees disclosed, real-time availability, listing complete, verified.
Operational responsiveness
Provider's average response time to qualified enquiries.
Quality Score only appears once a provider has claimed their listing. An unclaimed, CQC-only listing has no data beyond its CQC rating — every other signal defaults to neutral, which would understate even a well-rated home. We show the CQC rating and report-published date instead, and the score becomes available once the provider joins.
"Not yet rated" is scored below Requires Improvement, above Inadequate. No CQC verification at all shouldn't rank the same as a home CQC has actively found issues with — but a specific serious finding is still worse than the absence of one.
Score bands
- Exceptional (90–100) — strong CQC rating, high verified review volume, complete transparency, fast responses. A small minority of homes reach this band.
- Strong (80–89) — Good CQC rating with positive review profile and reasonable transparency. Most quality homes sit here.
- Standard (70–79) — meets CQC's Good threshold but with weaker review evidence, transparency, or responsiveness.
- Developing (below 70) — operational signals indicate the home is improving or has unresolved CQC findings. We continue to list these homes but always with full context.
- New partner — a freshly-claimed listing with no reviews yet and an incomplete profile. This isn't a quality judgement — it just means the home hasn't supplied enough data to be scored fairly, so we show that plainly instead of defaulting it into "Developing."
A worked example
Consider a home with: CQC Good (85), 4.4-star average over 18 verified reviews (88 weighted), fees disclosed and availability live (100), and average response time under 4 hours (85).
Quality Score = (85 × 0.40) + (88 × 0.30) + (100 × 0.15) + (85 × 0.15) = 34.0 + 26.4 + 15.0 + 12.75 = 88 → Strong.
What the Quality Score is not
- It is not a recommendation. A "Strong" home may still be wrong for your loved one's specific needs. Best Match weighs family fit higher (65% vs 35%) for exactly this reason.
- It is not affected by what providers pay us. Foundation, Connect, and Performance subscribers are scored identically. So are non-subscribed homes we list.
- It is not stored. The score is recomputed every time you load a page. If the input data changes, the score changes with it — no caching, no stale numbers.
See how Quality Score combines with family fit in Best Match →