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 last week in March (that is the week which includes 31 st march 2009) 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 , 1998-2009
- In the last week in March 2009, there were 68,334 home care clients. The number of home care clients has declined over the last 2 years - 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 has decreased, by around 0.8 per cent over the latest year to around 645,806 hours (Chart 1).
- The average hours received by each client in a week has remained steady over the last couple of years at 9.5. This compares to 5.1 in 1998 (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 last week in March 2009. This has steadily been rising since 1998 (Chart 3).