CQC Rating Review: How to Challenge a CQC Rating and When It Is Worth It

CQC Rating Review: How to Challenge a CQC Rating and When It Is Worth It

The only formal way to challenge a published CQC rating, explained step by step: who can ask, what counts as a valid ground, how long it takes, why a review can lower your rating and how to write the 500 words.

A CQC rating review (CQC calls it a rating process review) is a check of whether CQC followed its own process when it scored your assessment and reached your rating. You must ask within 15 working days of the rating being published, using CQC’s online form, in no more than 500 words. You cannot ask for a review because you disagree with CQC’s judgement, reasoning or score. CQC aims to finish within 50 working days, the rating stays published meanwhile, and ratings can go down as well as up. It is the final CQC process for challenging a rating, so use the draft report stage first.

This guide is for registered managers, nominated individuals and directors of care homes, home care agencies and other CQC-regulated services in England who are unhappy with a rating. It sets out what CQC’s own guidance says, in the order you will meet each stage, and adds practical help on deciding whether to ask and what to write. Where something is our interpretation and not CQC’s wording we say so.

A rating review is the second of two stages. The first, the factual accuracy check on the draft report, is where most challenges are won. If you are still at that stage, start there.

What is a CQC rating review?

After CQC publishes an assessment report and ratings, a provider can ask CQC to check the quality control process behind the rating. CQC’s guidance calls this the rating process review or rating assurance process review. Most providers and law firms call it a ratings review. It is not a statutory right of appeal. It is a matter of CQC policy, and CQC describes it as the final CQC process for challenging a rating (CQC: Rating process review).

CQC is clear about what it is not. It is not a second opportunity to reconsider the evidence or the judgements made, unless CQC finds an error in its quality control process. It is not a way to make a complaint, and it is not a way to make representations about enforcement action.

The challenge timeline: from draft report to review

The review comes after the factual accuracy check is complete and ratings are published. You cannot skip the first stage. If you have an enforcement notice as well, see CQC enforcement action explained, because the two processes interact.

The only ground: what counts and what does not

CQC’s guidance gives one ground: CQC failed to follow its process for making rating decisions. CQC also sets limits on what the request can contain:

The three “allowed” points mirror the three checks CQC says it makes during a review: that its teams carried out the relevant checks of the scores and ratings before publishing, that you had the opportunity to check factual accuracy, and that any challenges you made were properly considered before publication.

Examples of process failures worth checking for

The law firm Hempsons suggests inspection findings can still point to a process failure where factual inaccuracies persist despite a challenge, responses fail to address key points, decisions look rushed or poorly explained, or evidence seems to have been overlooked. CQC’s published rules also give you something concrete to check the report against. These examples are our reading of how CQC’s published scoring rules could reveal an error. They are not a CQC list, and CQC decides whether any error is a process failure:

See CQC: How we reach a rating for the full scoring and aggregation rules, and our Inadequate rating guide and Requires Improvement guide for how they apply to each band.

Who can request a review and how

• Who: the registered manager or the nominated individual. For NHS trusts or local authorities, the chief executive. For local authorities, a named liaison person.
• How: only through CQC’s online form. CQC gives you a link when it confirms that the final report and rating are being published.
• When: within 15 working days of the rating being published.
• How many: one request per assessment, which must relate to the latest assessment that awarded a rating.
• How long: 500 words maximum, describing how you consider the quality control process was not properly followed.

Put the deadline in the diary the day the final report arrives. The 15 working days include the time you need to read the final report against your factual accuracy response, so do not leave it until the end of the window.

What happens after you submit: the review process

1. A message appears on your profile page. CQC displays a message on the location’s page to show a review is taking place. The rating stays published.
2. CQC checks the grounds. It first decides whether your request meets the ground for review. If not, it refuses the request and writes to you to explain why.
3. An independent reviewer looks at the process. If the ground is met, the reviewer is a CQC staff member who was not involved in the original assessment, or an external reviewer where their expertise is relevant. They review the aspects of the process that were not followed correctly.
4. A deputy director decides. The reviewer makes a recommendation to an appropriate CQC deputy director in Operations, who takes the final decision.
5. Outcome. CQC aims to complete reviews within 50 working days, tells you the outcome and updates scores or ratings on its website as soon as possible.

If you are also challenging enforcement action, CQC pauses the review until those challenges are complete, usually including any appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. See the notice of proposal and tribunal appeal guides.

Can a rating review make your rating worse?

Yes. CQC says that because it looks at the process followed in awarding the score and rating, a review may extend to scores or ratings you received at the same time, even ones you did not think needed reconsideration. In CQC’s words, all scores and ratings can go down as well as up as a result of a review.

This is the single most important point when deciding whether to ask. A request that finds one error in the process can open the whole assessment to checking.

Should you request a rating review?

Whatever you decide, do not stop improving while you wait. Nothing in CQC’s guidance says a review pauses special measures, enforcement notices or re-inspection, so assume they continue. Your next inspection will test your improvements, not your argument. See our guide to responding to an Inadequate rating.

How to write the 500 words

You have one request and 500 words, so structure matters. The skeleton below is our suggestion, not a CQC template:

1. Identify the assessment. Location name, assessment date, date the rating was published and the rating or score you are asking CQC to review.
2. State one to three process failures. Each as a single sentence naming the step in CQC’s process you say was not followed, for example “the final report does not reflect evidence submitted on [date] in our factual accuracy response”.
3. Give the facts for each. Dates, document names and where in the report the issue appears. Reference what you sent at the draft stage.
4. Say what you ask CQC to check. For example the score to rating conversion or the aggregation for a named key question.

Leave out: disagreement with the inspector’s opinion, comparisons with earlier ratings or other providers, enforcement arguments, and improvement plans. Those belong elsewhere. Keep a copy of the form and the confirmation.

What if the review does not change the rating?

CQC says the rating process review is its final process for challenging a rating. Hempsons notes that providers can still consider a judicial review, a separate court process asking whether CQC acted lawfully, rationally and fairly in reaching its decision. Hempsons says providers have three months from the date of the ratings review to apply, and that if successful the court may require CQC to reconsider the decision, potentially leading to a re-inspection. Judicial review is a specialist, costly route, so take legal advice before relying on it. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

Sources and how this was checked

• CQC: Rating process review (page last updated 16 October 2026).
• CQC: Factual accuracy check (page last updated 24 April 2025).
• CQC: How we reach a rating (page last updated 13 May 2025; scoring from 2 December 2024).
• Hempsons, “My new CQC rating doesn’t reflect my service: where do I go from here?” (19 May 2026), for the process-failure examples and the judicial review timescale.

CQC’s page was read on 23 October 2026. If CQC changes the process, its own page takes priority.