Adult Social Care Client Level Data

Client Level Data (CLD) has the potential to transform our understanding of people’s journeys through the social care system. As referenced in Data saves lives, the ability to link client level data from local authorities with NHS records for the same individuals will strengthen our understanding of how people move between health and social care, enabling better oversight of how services work together across the country and a better understanding to improve outcomes for individuals drawing on care.

With routine validation of the data, CLD will provide local authorities with a robust and consistent minimum core dataset that can be used to meet their local reporting requirements. Local authorities will also be able to request NHS number tracing and linked (pseudonymised) health records for greater commissioning insight into local health and care systems.

This data, particularly when linked with other NHS data, can be used to:

• assess effective delivery of care
• support local service planning
• provide the basis for national indicators
• develop, monitor and evaluate government policy
• enable research
• improve services

Further information about the purpose of the collection is available by reading the Collection of Client Level Adult Social Care Data (number 3) Directions 2023. 

The Adult Social Care CLD data product is created from data submitted to NHS England by Arden & GEM (AGEM) who collect the data from local authorities on a quarterly basis. This is then transferred to NHS England where data is pseudonymised centrally and made available to request through the Data Access Request Service (DARS). It contains data relating to adults over 18 who are receiving social care services, informal carers and events where the care is provided or arranged by the local authority.

Following a 12-month period of dual running in 2023/24, CLD will replace the Short and Long Term (SALT) collection in 2024/25. CLD is seen as an evolution of the SALT return, containing more granular detail and timeliness to allow for more flexible and broader analytical use. For those who use existing activity metrics from SALT, guidance has been provided on how broadly comparable equivalents can be calculated from CLD.

CLD includes a wider range of activity for both new and existing clients. Requests for support are captured as event records for both new and existing clients.

There are 50 fields in the Release 1 specification, of which 33 are mandatory. The collection is modular, and fields are grouped into nine categories:

• submission Information
• person Information
• events (all)
• events (requests)
• events (assessments)
• events (reviews)
• events (services)
• events (carers)
• costs (services)

From July 2023, (starting with data relating to April – June 2023) local authorities have been required to submit data on a quarterly basis. The process for the collection is as follows:

1. Local authorities extract data from their case management systems.
2. Local authorities carry out processing to produce a standard quarterly return as a CSV file in line with the CLD specification.
3. Local authorities upload the CSV file to a Data Landing Portal (DLP) hosted by AGEM CSU in their capacity as NHS England’s North West Data Services for Commissioners Regional Office (DSCRO).
4. Personal identifiers such as postcode and date of birth are either removed or replaced with higher level derivations for example age group.
5. Data is sent across securely to NHS England where the NHS number is replaced with a central pseudonym. This will allow the data to be linked where appropriate to other data available through Data Access Research Service (DARS).

You can read about how NHS England are the guardians of patient data, making sure it is protected and handled securely.  You can find out more about  NHS England transparency information and about the Adult Social Care Client Level Data transparency notice.  You can find further information about this data collection's data provision notice.