Care homes · 6 min read
Showing your CQC or CIW rating on your website the right way
When a family is choosing a care home, the inspection rating is one of the first things they look for. Many will have already checked it on the regulator's site before they ever land on yours. So the question isn't whether to show it — it's how to show it in a way that's honest, current and actually helps someone decide. Done well, your rating becomes one of the most persuasive things on your care home website. Done badly, it becomes a compliance problem or, worse, a reason for a family to quietly walk away.
First, the rules in plain English
In England, the Care Quality Commission requires providers with a rating to display it conspicuously wherever they deliver care — and on their website, if they have one. The rating shown must be the current one, it should be easy to find, and it should link through to the full report on the CQC site. The CQC publishes a ready-made widget for exactly this purpose, which updates automatically when your rating changes.
In Wales, Care Inspectorate Wales works differently. There's no Outstanding-to-Inadequate scale, so there's no badge to display. What families get instead is a written inspection report covering wellbeing, care and support, environment, and leadership. There's no equivalent display duty, but linking to your latest report and summarising it in your own words does the same job — and homes that do it tend to look more confident than those that don't.
This is general guidance rather than legal advice. The regulators' own display requirements are the source of truth, and they're worth reading once a year.
Where to put it
The single biggest mistake we see is a rating buried at the bottom of an "About us" page. If families are going to look for it anyway, meet them where they are. The footer is a sensible home for a small, persistent version that appears on every page. The homepage should carry it somewhere above the fold or immediately beneath your opening pitch, next to the other things that build trust: how long you've been open, who owns you, and a genuine photo of your team.
If you're a group with several homes, each home's own page needs its own rating. A group-level "all our homes are rated Good" line is fine as a headline, but only if it's true today for every home listed. Group sites are where out-of-date ratings most often slip through, because nobody owns the job of checking.
Use the official widget, not a screenshot
It's tempting to save an image of the rating badge and drop it into the page. Don't. A static image is frozen on the day you took it, and the moment your rating changes it's quietly wrong — which for CQC providers means you're no longer displaying your current rating. The official CQC widget pulls live data, so it stays accurate without anyone remembering to update it. It also sends a small but useful signal to Google that your site is connected to your registered entry.
For CIW-registered homes, link directly to your provider page or latest report on the CIW website, and note the inspection date beside it. A line such as "Last inspected March 2026 — read the report" is more useful than any badge, because it tells a family two things they want to know: that you were inspected recently, and that you're not hiding it.
Explain the rating, don't just display it
A badge on its own is a fact. A short paragraph beside it is a conversation. Tell families what the inspectors actually looked at and what they found. If the report praised how staff know residents as individuals, quote it. If it commented on activities, mealtimes or how you handle medication, say so. Most families have never read an inspection report and don't know what "Safe" or "Well-led" mean in practice — a couple of plain sentences bridge that gap and make the rating feel earned rather than stamped.
What to do when the rating isn't what you hoped for
A "Requires Improvement" rating, or a CIW report with areas for improvement, is uncomfortable. The instinct is to say nothing. Resist it. Families will find the report on the regulator's site within seconds, and a home that hides its rating looks far worse than a home that owns it.
The approach that works is candour with a plan. Display the rating as required, then add a short, specific note: what the inspectors found, what you've changed since, and when you expect to be reinspected. "We've recruited a permanent deputy manager, retrained the whole team on care planning, and have invited the CQC back" is the kind of sentence that turns a weakness into evidence that you take the job seriously. Keep it dated, and keep it updated.
Keep it current — and make it someone's job
Ratings change, reports get published, and websites drift. Somebody in your organisation needs to own the task of checking the rating on your site against the regulator's record every time a new report lands, and at least every few months regardless. If your site is on a website care plan, this is exactly the kind of small, regular check that should be part of it, and it's worth asking whether it is.
Finally, keep the rating visible on mobile. Most families do their first research on a phone, and a badge that looks fine on a desktop can vanish into the footer or break the layout on a small screen. It's a small detail, but it's the sort that decides whether a family picks up the phone or moves on to the next home.
Related reading
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