Adult Social Care Data Collections

The purpose of the data collected is to enable key aspects of the provision of adult social care services across England to be assessed at a national, regional and local level. Data collected covers several themes such as activity, finance, safeguarding and user experience.

Adult social care data is either collected by Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) through their case management and administration systems, which is then submitted annually/biennially/triennially to NHS England for secondary uses, or via nationally defined surveys which are administered by CASSRs and then submitted to NHS England.

The current Adult Social Care data collections cover:

• (A) Adult Social Care Finance Return (ASC-FR)
• (A) Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA)
• (A) Registered Blind and Partially Sighted collection
• (A) Safeguarding Adults Collection (SAC)
• (I) Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983
• (I) Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)
• (S) Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey, England (ASCS)
• (S) Personal Social Services Survey of Adult Carers in England (SACE)

These national adult social care data collections are either: 

• aggregated (A) counts of service users, carers, and events 
• individual client level (I)
• surveys (S) 

The collection of Short and Long Term (SALT) activity return data ended on 31 March 2024. CASSRs in England are therefore no longer required by NHS England to provide data for the purposes of SALT under this Data Provision Notice. SALT data will continue to be held by NHS England for analytics purposes and reporting.

Some of the adult social care data NHS England collects also populates the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF). This measures how well the care and support services achieve the outcomes that matter most to people.

Every collection is collected annually except SACE and Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983 (both collected biennially) and Registered Blind and Partially Sighted (collected triennially).

This Notice is served on:

• all Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England

The adult social care collections timetable provides further details of when data collections will take place. Please note that this timetable is a live document and is frequently edited to reflect changes to the adult social care collection schedule.

Users are advised to check this regularly for updates by visiting the adult social care collections webpage and selecting the September letter of the relevant data year.

4 September 2024: Version 3.0 of this Notice issued to reflect the cessation of the SALT collection on 31 March 2024 and the restarting of the collection of Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983 data.