Dorset has one of the lowest proportions of poor quality care homes in England, new research has found.

A study carried out by the charity Independent Age charity found a dramatic variation in the quality of care homes across the country, with the proportion rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) increasing in one in five local authority areas in 2017.

However, Dorset County Council is among 20 local authorities with the lowest rate of poor quality care homes, with only 14.6 per cent given the worst two ratings (inadequate and requires improvement) by the CQC last year, down from 20.1 per cent in 2016.

The charity’s research is based on inspection data taken from January 2018.

Meanwhile, Tameside near Manchester had some of the worst care homes in the country with more than half (56.8 per cent) rated as inadequate or requiring improvement while Bracknell Forest, Isles of Scilly, Reading, Rutland and Southwark come out on top with none of their care homes achieving the bottom two ratings.

Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, said: “Older people and their families are still facing an unenviable choice between poor care homes in some parts of the country.

“While it is encouraging that there has been an overall improvement in quality, this masks persistent variation in the quality of care homes within each region of the country.

"The market simply does not seem to be able to drive the rapid improvement needed in many areas.

“While the government seems happy to deflect all decisions about social care into the vague promise of a green paper, local authorities are having to make difficult decisions now about care in their area.

“We urgently need both government and local authorities to demonstrate that they understand the reasons for this variation and that they have the ability to address it.”

The charity believes the drivers for care home quality variation includes factors such as low levels of funding by local authorities, low pay and difficulty recruiting staff, as well as the lack of a good support mechanism for improving care homes that are struggling.

The care homes market is now valued at nearly £16 billion, this is despite social care facing a £2.6 billion funding gap by 2019/20.