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National Statistics
Publication, Part of

Community Care Statistics, Social Services Activity, England - 2014-15

National statistics, Official statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Regions, Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs), Ambulance Trusts
Date Range:
Snapshot on 06 Oct 2015

Summary

As part of the 2015-16 validation round, councils were invited to resubmit 2014-15 data. 50 councils submitted restated data to NHS Digital and the revised data are now available as part of the products for the 2015-16 publication.

This is a report on the social care activity of Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England.  It contains information taken from council administrative systems used to record the process of assessing eligibility to state funded social care and providing services where people are eligible.

It uses data from the new SALT return, information presented here are findings from the final data submitted by CASSRs and relates to England for the period 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015.

On 10/11/2015 the HSCIC published some additional analysis of this data at regional level. It can be accessed via the supplementary information page and is titled Community Care Statistics - Regional Data.

On 19/12/2015, an updated version of the report was published to make a correction to the wording of the key finding on Young Carers (p.9). This had previously stated that there were 334,000 instances of support being provided direct to carers, of which 6,000 (one per cent) requests for carer support related to carers aged under 18; it should have stated that there were 334,000 instances of support being provided direct to carers. 6,000 (one per cent) requests for carer support related to carers aged under 18.

In addition, on 19/12/2015 we have published an additional csv flat file of the data, along with 2 associated reference data csv files.

On 14 March 2016, an updated version of Annex E (national tables) was published. This corrected wording in the headings on the Contents page for the STS002b tables. These headings had previously stated 'Of EXISTING clients where the sequel to a request for support was...' and have been updated to 'Of EXISTING clients who have received...'. In addition, the breakdown for STS002b.c was corrected from 'Support Setting' to 'Carer Support' and the breakdown for STS002b.d, previously unstated, was updated to 'Support Setting'. These headings have also been updated on the individual table pages. The opportunity was also taken to review document as a whole, and some minor grammatical errors were identified in the contents page. No changes have been made to the data within this Annex.

On 14 March 2016, an updated version of the report was published, removing references to National Statistics, to reflect that this publication is no longer designated as National Statistics, in the light of questions over data quality. A letter related to this change can be found on the Statistics Authority website.  

The opportunity was taken to make minor improvements to the document layout. No changes have been made to data, commentary or findings.

Highlights

Key Findings

  • There were 1,846,000 requests for support from new clients actioned in 2014-15[1]. Of these, 72 per cent (1,327,000) were from clients aged 65 and over; the remaining 28 per cent of clients (519,000) were aged 18-64.
  • The majority of these new requests for support, (1,460,000 clients, or 79 per cent), came through the Community. A further 18 per cent (333,000 clients) had been discharged from hospital.
  • The most common sequel to requests for support was Universal Services/Signposted to Other Services (31 per cent, or 575,000 requests), followed by No Services Provided - any reason (28 per cent, or 520,000 requests). A further 16 per cent (304,000 requests) were offered ongoing low level support, with ST-Max and Long Term Support accounting for 12 per cent (218,000 requests) and eight per cent (144,000 requests) respectively.
  • STS004 is the only measure now available for direct year on year comparison. The percentage of those discharged still at home 91 days later has reduced slightly from 83 per cent in 2013-14 to 82 per cent this year, driven primarily by a decrease for those clients aged 85 and over. However, when considering a longer term view, this was up from 81 per cent, five years ago (2009-10).
  • There were 254,000 completed instances (for both new and existing clients) of Short Term Support to Maximise Independence (ST-Max) with a determined sequel during 2014-15. In addition, 29,000 were still accessing the support at year end.
  • For those receiving a completed instance of this form of support, the most common Primary Support Reason was Physical Support: Personal Care Support (70 per cent, or 178,000 requests).
  • After receiving Short Term Support, 26 per cent (65,000 clients) went on to receive Long Term Support, of which 93 per cent (60,000 clients) received this support in the Community.
  • 890,000 clients accessed Long Term Support during 2014-15; of these, 659,000 were accessing the service at year end. 485,000 clients at year end had been in receipt of this Long Term Support for more than 12 months.
  • The most common Primary Support Reason for Long Term Support (received by 51 per cent or 450,000 clients), was Physical Support - Personal Care support.
  • Learning Disability support then followed, received by 16 per cent of clients and Mental Health support for 12 per cent.
  • Physical Support: Access and Mobility Only, and Support with Memory and Cognition each accounted for nine per cent of clients with the remainder split across Sensory Support and Social Support.
  • 86,000 clients were accessing Long term Support (Nursing) in 2014-15 with 194,000 clients accessing Residential support. These two settings supported 32 per cent of all clients accessing Long Term Support last year. The remaining 609,000 clients (68 per cent) were supported in the Community, most (350,000 clients, or 39 per cent) through a CASSR managed personal budget. 
  • Clients aged 65 and over account for two-thirds (68 per cent) of all clients accessing Long Term Support. Within this age group, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) accessing Long Term Support during 2014-15 required Physical Support - Personal Care Support. Among those clients aged 18 to 64, the most common Primary Support Reason was Learning Disability support, accounting for 43 per cent of the age group.
  • There were 334,000 instances of support being provided direct to carers, of which 6,000 (one per cent) requests for carer support related to carers aged under 18. For 24 per cent of all requests for carer support, no direct support was provided.
  • In this first SALT collection, it was mandatory to report on those clients with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome who received Long Term Support at year end. As of 31st March 2015, there were 12,000 clients with Autism and 5,000 clients with Asperger's Syndrome (combined, they account for three per cent of all clients receiving Long Term Support at year end). These clients are predominantly aged between 18 and 64; 96 per cent of the 12,000 clients with Autism and 97 per cent of the 5,000 clients with Asperger's Syndrome were in this age band.


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[1] This relates to new requests for social care support received by the council from new clients where the sequel, or outcome, to that request was determined during the year. A new client is one that is not in receipt of any Long Term Support at the time the contact was made.

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Last edited: 18 April 2024 1:57 pm