Food, activities, environment and pets are more important to families looking for care homes than regulator ratings

• CQC ratings are increasingly irrelevant to families, says care tech leader and campaigner
• Private sector has vital role to play in ensuring families can find information on the things that matter to them
• Analysis highlights the criteria that providers need to offer to attract residents

Searches carried out by care seekers on Autumna, the UK’s largest and most comprehensive independent care directory, show that catering, the range of activities, environmental commitments and even pet policies are scrutinised more often than the ratings awarded by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Millions of people use Autumna to search for care for themselves or a loved one every year.

Last year, the most popular care home information sought out was fees, with nearly one in five users (18.2%) checking the fees of care homes that met their search criteria. The next most significant information looked for were rooms, checked out by one in ten care seekers (10.2%), followed by admission criteria (9.2%).

However, only 3.3% looked for more detailed information explaining the rating a care home had been awarded by the CQC.

By contrast, two and half times as many care seekers researched the dining choices (8.8%), while twice as many checked out the environmental commitments of care homes they were considering (7.2%). The choice of activities was also more important to self-funding families, with 5.75% investigating this.

With 3.6% of visitors checking out care homes’ pet policies, even the ability to take a furry or feathered friend proved to be more relevant for care seekers than the official ratings of the quality of care that they or their loved one could expect to receive.

“Fees are always the biggest concern for self-funding families looking for care, and they also want to know that they, or mum or dad, will feel at home,” comments Autumna’s Managing Director, Debbie Harris, “so it’s no surprise that fees and rooms were the most interrogated information on the Autumna website in 2024.

“But the fact that only one in 30 people clicked to find out more details about the regulator ratings of the care homes they were looking at highlights just how irrelevant these are for people looking for care.

“With inspections often woefully out of date – up to seven years in some cases – the CQC is failing to provide care seekers with information they can rely upon about the quality of care offered by providers. The regulator also doesn’t assess the things that matter most to families: detailed information on the type of care available, the quality of food, the range of activities, environmental policies – and whether pets are allowed.  

“While we welcome the admission by the CQC’s new chief executive, Sir Julian Hartley, that the regulator is not delivering, Autumna’s insights shows that it will never be able to provide all the information that care seekers need to help them choose care – and, crucially, that providers need to be able to evidence the quality of their care, facilities and service.

“Our analysis shows that even if the CQC is able to turn itself around, the private sector will continue to have a vital role to play in ensuring care seekers can easily find information about the things that they or their loved ones need to feel truly at home in a care home.”

A family’s experience – case study

"We found the CQC ratings to be incredibly unhelpful in our search for a care home for my father. We looked at homes rated 'good', but the quality varied dramatically. One home's rating was from 2017, seven years out of date.

“The CQC categories are vague and don't highlight what families really need to know. 'Effective' and 'well-led' mean little when you're assessing actual care quality.

“The CQC ratings do not include a reference to the ability of the care homes to meet specific needs such as dementia, which is one of the most important pieces of information for families looking for care for their relatives.

We found Autumna to be much more helpful, providing up-to-date information and allowing us to search by postcode. The search provided a list of care homes in the area which set out a summary of the categories of care provided by each home so that we could immediately disregard those that did not cater for the type of care needed, narrowing down the search.”

Julia Mueller

Analysis methodology

Autumna enables care seekers to search by location, type of care and price, as well as the most comprehensive list of additional filters available online, including: dementia and nursing specialisms, infection control, room features, facilities, nearby amenities and transport, dietary options, activities and whether pets are welcome.

It additionally provides a comprehensive range of information tabs on each care home. Website traffic during 2024 was analysed to identify which information tabs were opened most often by care seekers.

Helping care homes and families find one another

Autumna has transformed how care homes demonstrate the quality of their services by enabling them to show objective, real-time, aggregated scores for their services with the launch of its OpenScore ratings. These give an independent score out of 10, compiled from multiple data points, including: fees; manager bio; dining choices; infection prevention and control; and environmental, social and governance.

OpenScore ratings are available free of charge on premium listings on the Autumna website, while the OpenScore Website Widget is available to every care home  in the UK to display on their websites.

“OpenScore fills the void created by the failures within the CQC by giving providers a real-time score to evidence the quality of their care and services. At the same time it gives care seekers – who now conduct more than 90% of their care home decision-making process online – an easy-to-understand, at-a-glance, standardised ranking to enable them to compare different providers. It also provides the NHS and commissioning bodies with a live indicator of the quality of care, helping discharge and social care teams find appropriate care for the elderly,” explains Harris.

About Autumna

Autumna is the UK’s largest and most comprehensive later life living and elderly care directory. Specialising in the self-funding market, it helps families and individuals make informed choices and access higher standards of care. Proudly independent, Autumna provides completely impartial advice and does not take referral fees from providers. It aims to improve transparency and standards across the entire elder care sector. Following its establishment in 2019, over two million care seekers each year now access Autumna’s directory of over 26,000 care providers.

Debbie Harris is Managing Director and Founder.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION including interviews:
Siobhan Stirling, siobhan@sharpminds.agency, 01892 570863, 07990 543829