Scottish Government

1. Introduction and key points

The purpose of this Statistics Release is to present the latest national figures for home care services provided or purchased by local authorities in Scotland. All local authorities in Scotland provide Home Care services which give people the support, practical help and personal care that they need to live as independently as possible in the community.

All figures relate to the first week in April (that is the week which includes Wednesday 2 ^nd April) and are provisional and, as such, may be subject to change. The final figures will be published in future publications.

Chart 1: Home care clients and hours provided , 1998-2008

• In the first week in April 2008, there were 68,759 home care clients. The number of home care clients has declined in the last year after an increase in clients each year between 2002 and 2005 and a levelling in 2006 and 2007 (Chart 1).

• The number of hours of home care provided to clients continues to increase, by around 1 per cent over the latest year to around 651,000 hours (Chart 1).
• The average hours received by each client in a week continues to show a steady increase from 5.1 in 1998 to 9.5 in 2008 (Chart 2).

· The number of older people (aged 65 and over) receiving an intensive service (more than 10 hours per week) was around 18.1 clients per 1000 population as at the first week in April 2008. This has steadily been rising since 1998 (Chart 3).

2. Scotland Analysis

There was an estimated 651,014 hours of service provided to 68,759 clients in 2008. The number of clients dropped from 79,294 in 1998 to 64,546 in 2002, it then increased to 71,094 in 2005 and has fallen slightly to 68,759 in 2008 (see Chart 1). The number of client hours has increased by 74 per cent since 1999. In 1999 clients received, on average, 5.1 hours of home care per week. This has risen steadily to 9.5 hours for 2008 (See Annex Table 2, and Chart 2).

Chart 2: Average Number of Hours Provided per Client, 1998-2008

In 2005, the data collection was refined to collect information on older people receiving 10+ hours per week. Previously these figures were estimated.

The estimated number of older people receiving intensive home care (more than 10 hours per week) increased each year between 1998 and 2005 but decreased by less than 1 per cent (102 clients) between 2005 and 2006 before increasing again in 2007 and then again in 2008 to 15,332 clients. In 2008 there were 18.1 clients per 1,000 population aged 65 or over that received intensive home care - compared with 17.5 in 2007 and 9.0 in 1998 (See Annex Table 2).

Chart 3: Clients aged 65+ receiving 10 hours + per 1,000 population aged 65+, 1998-2008

Of the estimated 68,759 clients who received a home care service provided or purchased by a local authority in 2008, 29 per cent received at least part of their home care service from a private or voluntary provider - compared to only 6 per cent in 1998 (Table 1, Annex Table 5).

Chart 4: Proportion of Home Care Clients by Provider, 1998-2008

Chart 5: Proportion of the Hours of Home Care Service by Provider, 1998 - 2008

The average number of contact hours per client for those receiving local authority provided services only was 6.9 hours per week, compared to 16 hours for those receiving home care from a private or voluntary provider only (See Table 1).

Table 1: Number of Home Care Clients and Hours Provided / Purchased by Provider of Service, 2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

237,206 hours were provided to clients receiving home care services solely from the private or voluntary sector. This has increased by 37 per cent since 2005 when 173,330 hours were provided.

Additionally, 74,761 hours (11 per cent) were provided by some combination of local authority, private and voluntary provision as at the first week in April 2008 (See Table 1 & Chart 5).

The proportion of service provided solely by local authorities has been decreasing steadily from 89 per cent in 1998 to 52 per cent in 2008. The majority of this decrease is due to the increase in service provided or purchased solely from the voluntary and private sectors (see Annex Table 5).

Profile of Clients Receiving Home Care Services

Approximately 77 per cent of clients receiving home care services provided or purchased by local authorities were people with physical disabilities (including frailty associated with ageing). An estimated 68 per cent of clients were female and 32 per cent were male. An estimated 80 per cent of all clients were aged 65 years or over (See Table 2).

Table 2: Age, Client Group and Gender of Clients Receiving Home Care Services, 2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Approximately 60 per cent of clients in receipt of a home care service were living alone; an additional 13 per cent were living in households where 2 or more people received the service (See Table 3). Note that this information was not provided by all Local Authorities.

Table 3: Living Arrangements of Clients Receiving Home Care Services, 2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Level of Home Care Services Provided

30 per cent of home care clients received at least 10 hours of service provided or purchased by a local authority in 2008. This percentage has gradually increased over the last 9 years from 11 per cent in 1998 to 30 per cent in 2008. The number of clients receiving less than 4 hours has decreased over the same period from 60 per cent to 40 per cent.

In 2008, 21 per cent of under 65's received 20 hours or more home care a week compared with 5 per cent of over 65's.

Table 4: Number of Home Care Clients by Level of Service Received, 2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Chart 6 Level of Service 1998-2008

People aged 65 and over account for 85 per cent of people receiving less than 1 hour of home care, compared to 18 per cent of all people receiving 50 hours or over and 80 per cent of all people receiving home care. (see chart 7)

Chart 7: Ratio of people aged 65 and over to people aged under 65 by level of service, 2008

3. Background information on the collection of the data

A revised home care statistical collection was introduced in 1998. Local authorities are asked to provide details of all home care services provided by their own staff, and in addition, services bought in from other local authorities, and private / voluntary organisations. Information on client age, for level and type of service has been collected since 2005.

Data were collected with respect to the first week in April (that is the week which includes Wednesday 2 ^nd April) 2008.

A return was received from each local authority in Scotland. A small amount of information had to be estimated for some local authorities. Some local authorities had difficulty in providing information on the living arrangements of the clients.

Total hours may not add up to the sum of components due to rounding.

More detailed tables on home care services are available from our website at: www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/Data/HomeCare.

Further information

Further details and analysis of the data presented in this Statistics Release are available on request from the address given below. The Statistics Release is available on the Internet by accessing the Scottish Government web site: - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/Publications

Information at local authority level is shown in the annex to this Statistics Release.

Community Care Statistics

Contact: Steven Gillespie
Tel: 0131 244 3777
E-mail: SWStat@scotland.gov.uk

This statistics release was published on 25 ^th November 2008.

4. Annex

The Annex provides further detailed analysis.

Table 1: Total Number of Home Care Clients and Hours of Service Provided by Local Authority
Table 2: Number of Home Care Clients and Hours Provided/Purchased, 1998-2008
Table 3: Home Care Clients by Level of Service, 1998-2008
Table 4: Distribution of Clients by Level of Service, 1998-2008
Table 5: Home Care Clients and Hours Provided by Provider of Service, 1998-2008

Note that Scotland totals may not equal the sum of the individual local authority figures because of rounding.

Table 1: Total Number of Home Care Clients and Hours of Service Provided by Local Authority

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Table 2: Number of Home Care Clients and Hours Provided/Purchased, 1998-2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Table 3: Home Care Clients by Level of Service, 1998-2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Table 4: Distribution of Clients by Level of Service, 1998-2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

Table 5: Home Care Clients and Hours Provided by Provider of Service, 1998-2008

Source: Home Care Statistical Return H1

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT STATISTICIAN GROUP

OUR AIM

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Details of pre-release access will be provided in the Scottish Government Statistics Website under 'Forthcoming Releases'

Correspondence and enquiries

Enquiries on Free Personal and Nursing Care should be addressed to:

Steven Gillespie
Analytical Services Division

Telephone: 0131 244 3777;
Fax: 0131 244 5427
e-mail: Swstat@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

General enquiries on Scottish Government statistics can be addressed to:

Office of the Chief Statistician
Scottish Government

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e-mail: statistics.enquiries@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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Most recent Health Statistical Publications relating to the Community Care theme

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