How is the review score calculated?

A care home, service or group’s review score is the number you see in the blue circle on the search result pages as well as individual profiles.

The review scores determine which care homes/services and groups win the annual Top 20 Care Home Awards. 

The maximum review score is 10, which is made up of average rating of reviews (5 points) and number of positive reviews in the last 24 months in relation to the registered maximum number of service users at the care home (5 points).

When a review is submitted by someone who has previously submitted a review, only the latest review will be published and count towards the review score.

Care homes/services which do not have a review in the last 24 months are not awarded a review score.

How the points for average rating of reviews are calculated

 There are 5 points available for the average rating of reviews in the last 24 months.

 There are 12 individual ratings on each review:

• Overall Experience
• Care/Support
• Treated with Dignity
• Staff
• Management
• Rooms
• Facilities
• Cleanliness
• Food & Drink
• Activities
• Safety/Security
• Value For Money

 The reviewer rates each individual area as ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Poor’ or ‘Very Poor’. The care home receives points for each rating as follows: 

• Excellent - 5
• Good - 4
• Satisfactory - 3
• Poor - 2
• Very Poor - 1

These points are added up and then divided by the total number of completed ratings to generate the average rating.

How the points for the number of positive reviews in the last 24 months are calculated

There are 5 Points available for the number of positive reviews in the last 24 months. 

 A Positive Review is defined as any Review with an Overall Experience of 4 or 5 (out of a maximum rating of 5).

The 5 available points are broken down as follows:

A) 4 points are available for 10 positive reviews in last 24 months

• 3 points for the first positive review
• 0.125 points for each of the next 4 positive reviews
• and then 0.1 points for each of the next 5 positive reviews.

(1st = 3, 2nd = 0.125, 3rd = 0.125, 4th = 0.125, 5th = 0.125, 6th = 0.1, 7th = 0.1, 8th = 0.1, 9th = 0.1, 10th = 0.1).

B) 1 point is available for the number of positive reviews reaching 20 per cent of the registered maximum number of service users in the last 24 months.

If this number is partially reached, then that proportion of 1 point is given. For example, a care home/service registered for a maximum of 50 service users has to reach 10 Positive Reviews to receive 1 point, if it has 7 reviews it will receive 0.7 points.

For Adult Day Care Centres and Extra Care Housing, A) and B) are replaced by having 5 points available for 5 Positive Reviews in last 24 months, 3 points for the first Positive Review, 0.5 Points for each of the next 4 Positive Reviews. 

How group review scores are calculated

The group review score is derived from the average of all the review scores of its members with a review score.

75%+ members of the group must have a review score before a group review score can be achieved.

Change Log

3 FEBRUARY 2022 - MINOR UPDATE - DEFINITION OF POSITIVE REVIEW

On 3 February 2022 we made a minor update to the review score relating to what we define as a positive review, and as a result a small percentage of review scores changed by a very small amount, generally less than 0.1 points.

5 Points of the review score are available for the number of positive reviews.

Before 3 February 2022, we defined a positive review as any Review with 'Extremely Likely' or 'Likely' in answer to the question 'How likely are you to recommend this care provider to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?'. 

On 3 February 2022 we decided to remove this question as we believe it was very similar to the rating ‘Overall Experience’, and by removing this question we have made it easier for reviewers to submit reviews.

As a result, we also have changed what we define as a positive review to any review with an Overall Experience of 4 or 5 (out of a maximum rating of 5). 

In the vast majority of cases where a reviewer answered ‘Extremely Likely’ or ‘Likely’ to the recommend question, they gave a rating of 4 or 5 for Overall Experience, and where this happens there is no change to the review score.

Very occasionally, this might not be the case, eg a reviewer might have answered ‘Likely’ but given a rating of ‘3’, and in this situation there will be a minor change to the review score.

The number of positive reviews to achieve up the 5 points remains the same as before - as outlined above in the section 'How the points for the number of positive reviews in the last 24 months are calculated'.