Almost one in five care homes in England are failing, analysis shows – as a new map reveals the best and worst across the UK.
A total of 132 facilities were ranked ‘inadequate’ – the worst possible score, MailOnline can reveal.
Another 2,418 were judged to ‘require improvement’, according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulator.
An astonishing 40 per cent of homes are sub-par in Liverpool, neighbouring Halton and Camden in central London, our investigation found.
Care England chief executive Professor Martin Green today slammed the ‘postcode lottery’ patients face in terms of care standards.
He blamed ‘poor local authority commissioning and low fee rates’.
Lib Dem care spokesperson Alison Bennett said: ‘Millions of elderly and vulnerable people across the country are struggling to get the care they need and deserve.
‘These figures are shocking and once again demonstrate the need for social care reform.
‘The Conservative neglect of local health and care services has driven our NHS into the ground and left families struggling to find suitable care for their loved ones.’
She added: ‘We can’t afford to wait three more years for the Government’s social care review. It must be completed by the end of the year to get people the care they are crying out for.’
Detailed results of MailOnline’s probe of nearly 14,000 facilities can be viewed in our interactive maps.
One shows how well care homes are performing overall in your area. The other lists every home and their individual scores.
Under CQC rules, all homes are typically assessed by inspectors every three years. New sites must be assessed within 12 months of opening.
Homes are ranked on a Nando’s-style colour scale as ‘outstanding’ (blue), ‘good’, (green) ‘requires improvement’ (amber) or ‘inadequate’ (red).
In Liverpool, the authority with the highest share of sub-par care homes, 29 out of 80 were rated amber.
CQC wording says this means the service ‘is not performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve’.
Four were rated inadequate (red), meaning ‘the service is performing badly and we’ve taken action against the person or organisation that runs it’.
The CQC has powers to prosecute people and organisations who levy the rules, from hefty fines to prison sentences in the worst cases.
Behind Liverpool came Camden (40 per cent), Halton (39 per cent) and Coventry (36 per cent).
Four boroughs within London — Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and Westminster – had zero sub-par care homes.
All 61 providers across the areas were rated either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, according to our analysis, which was correct as of March 3.
Three in ten care homes were failing in 14 of the 153 authorities across England.
In the Isles of Scilly, its only care home was rated amber.
Care homes are also scored on five ‘key questions’, based on how caring, effective, responsive, safe and well-led they are.
Results of these categories feed into a combined overall score.
This month, a disabled man was filmed eating from a bin at a private care home in Coventry after his worried mother installed a hidden camera.
ITV News’ investigation found numerous examples of neglect at supported-living facilities run by Lifeways, one of the UK’s largest private care companies.
The secret video captured Connor, a 23-year-old who needs round-the-clock care due to a rare genetic condition that causes developmental delays, being shouted at and mocked.
In another clip, Connor, who also has autism and bipolar disorder, was left alone for so long that he had to wake up the carer meant to be looking after him.
Connor was placed in the Lifeways home in 2018, with the council paying £4,700 a week for his stay.
The facility was rated as ‘requires improvement’ last year by the CQC.
Connor, 23, has bipolar disorder, as well as autism and developmental delays as a result of a rare genetic condition called Phelan-McDermid Syndrome
The council paid Lifeways £4,700 per week for Connor’s stay, which was meant to include round-the-clock, one-to-one care – but a secret camera set up by his mother Lindsay revealed him eating from the bin for an hour, completely unsupervised
In an interview with ITV News, Lifeways CEO Andrea Kinkade said: ‘It’s absolutely appalling to hear those stories and to hear about anybody who receives neglectful care or lack of care. I think it is absolutely shameful.
‘These situations are historic.
‘They were dealt with robustly at the time. As soon as we were alerted to them, we suspended people and they were subsequently dismissed.’
Meanwhile, a surrey care home came under fire in February after a woman shared footage of her elderly mother being abused on This Morning.
The ITV show shared distressing clips which Clare Miller and her brother recorded while her mother Ann King was staying at Grange care home in 2022.
One clip showed Ann being roughly moved around in her bed as she pleaded with staff to stop.
In another they goaded Ann, who was in her late 80s at the time, by dangling her belongings in front of her, before swearing at her and jeering.
The care home told This Morning: ‘The behaviour of the individuals involved in Mrs King’s care three years ago was reprehensible and does not reflect our high standards.
‘We have since implemented significant reforms to ensure that families and care providers alike are protected from the actions of rogue individuals.’
Clare Miller told This Morning of the abuse her mother Ann King suffered at the Grange care home in Surrey in 2022
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Everybody deserves to be treated with dignity and these figures are unacceptable.
‘This government inherited a social care system in crisis. We have taken immediate action, including a £3.7billion funding and we have launched the Casey Commission to build consensus for a National Care Service for all.
‘Since Dr Penny Dash’s review found that the Care Quality Commission was not fit for purpose last year, the CQC have been taking steps to recover performance and ensure patients can have confidence in its ability to protect their safety once again.’
It comes after Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of the CQC, last month warned the public against trusting their rankings.
In a frank admission to the Sunday Times, he warned the regulator has ‘lost its way’ with many of its reports now years out of date.
Sir Julian blamed a new IT system that resulted in reports and information being lost, a backlog of 5,000 safety alerts, additional training requirements and a loss of expert inspectors.
Britain’s care homes warned earlier this year that they were at ‘breaking point’ due to ‘stretched’ staffing levels, leaving the industry at fear of collapse.
Social care firms warned in January their costs will surge by a further 10 per cent when Rachel Reeves‘s changes to NICs take effect in April, making the funding crisis ‘even more serious’.
Care homes are expected to increase fees charged to local authorities by eight per cent — more than £3,000 a year — to cover the increased costs from the Budget, according to the charity Care England.
James Bullion, interim chief inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care at the CQC, told MailOnline: ‘Our annual State of Care report published in October last year highlighted that the adult social care sector remains fragile. The number of new requests for local authority adult social care support resulting in no service being provided has increased by 27% over the last 5 years.
‘Waits for care home beds and home-based care account for nearly half of delayed discharges for patients in hospital for more than 14 days. While staff vacancy rates have dropped slightly, the average vacancy rate in social care is still nearly three times higher than in the national workforce, and care workers are among the lowest paid members of society.
‘The majority of care homes in England are good or outstanding and this reflects the incredible efforts of carers and providers who have gone above and beyond to provide high quality care. While we know many people are accessing good, safe care, it is clear that the issues in the sector continue to impact on quality of care for too many others.
‘We accepted in full the findings and recommendations in the Penny Dash review, which identified clear areas where improvement is urgently needed. Many of these align with areas we have prioritised as part of our work to restore trust with the public and providers by listening better, working together more collaboratively and being honest about what we’ve got wrong.
‘We are working at pace and in consultation with our stakeholders – including Local Authorities – to rebuild that trust and become the strong, credible, and effective regulator of health and care services that the public and providers need and deserve.
‘Each and every person is entitled to high quality care and we will continue to hold providers to account where we find this is not the case. If you, or any of your loved ones, are not experiencing the care they would expect please let us know through Give Feedback on Care.’