Community Care Statistics, Home help and care services for adults: England, 2007

During a sample week in September 2007:

• an estimated 3.9 million contact hours were provided to around 334,500 households (or 346,700 service users). This represents a 4 per cent increase in the number of contact hours since 2006. The number of households and service users receiving home care have both fallen by 3 per cent
• 78 per cent of the total contact hours of home care were provided by the independent sector to 256,400 households. This compares with 75 per cent of contact hours and 253,200 households in 2006
• the average number of contact hours per household in 2007 was 11.6, compared to 10.8 in 2006. This suggests that more intensive services are being provided for a smaller number of service users, continuing the trend seen over the last 10 years
• the gross annual expenditure on home care services was £2.6 billion in 2006-07, a 3 per cent increase in real terms on 2005-06
• around 10,800 households were receiving home care from both the CASSR directly and the independent sector: a 17 per cent decrease from the 2006 figure of 13,000
• around 103,100 households (31 per cent of all households receiving home care) received intensive home care in 2007 (defined as more than 10 contact hours and 6 or more visits during the week). This represents a 2 per cent increase from the 2006 figure of 100,700 households
• in 2007, 52 per cent of households who received home care received more than 5 hours of care and 6 or more visits compared to 50 per cent in 2006
• 13 per cent of households receiving care had only a single visit during the week compared with 14 per cent in 2006. In the vast majority of these cases the visit lasted 2 hours or less.