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Publication, Part of

Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report, England, 2021-22

National statistics, Official statistics, Accredited official statistics

Accredited official statistics logo.

ASC-FR RO3 reconciliation exercise with DLUHC

A piece of work was conducted in partnership with DLUHC to reconcile the difference between ASC-FR and RO3 net current expenditure.  Local authorities were contacted and asked to provide comments on why net current expenditure differed in the two returns. The comments have been categorised in the Data Quality Summary excel tables.

23 January 2023 11:15 AM

2016-17 update to cash and real term NCE and GCE figures

Table 4 of the Net Current Expenditure and Gross Current Expenditure Tables the cash and real term figures for 2016-17 have been corrected. The correction has also taken place in the chart - Figure 3 Cash vs Real term

16 February 2024 14:40 PM

Short term care

Following a request for support and subsequent assessment, clients may be provided with a period of short term care.

Short term care falls into two categories;

Short Term Support to Maximise Independence (ST-Max) – This includes all episodes of support provided that are intended to be time limited, with the intention of maximising the independence of the individual and reducing / eliminating their need for ongoing support by the CASSRs.

Other Short Term Support – All other short term services, for example, emergency support not otherwise included in short term to maximise independence.

Please Note: There are a number of differences in how information on short term care is collected between the ASC-FR and SALT returns.

For example, activity data includes those receiving short term care to maximise independence with a Primary Support Reason (PSR) of Social Support, whereas this PSR is not included in short term expenditure (instead being recorded elsewhere).

Therefore, care must be taken when comparing the two returns; some comparisons of general trends can be made, but more direct comparisons, such as a cost per episode of care, are not recommended.


Key findings

In 2021-22 3.5% of gross current expenditure was spent on short term care

Expenditure data combines ST-Max (£402 million) and other short term care spending (£366 million) to give an overall gross current expenditure on short term care of £767 million (up 12.7% or £86 million since last year). Expenditure on short term care accounts for 3.5% of the total gross current expenditure.

Adults aged 65 and over accounted for 75.3% (£578 million) of the total short term spend. This age group has seen a 14.0% increase since last year whereas expenditure for those 18-64 years old has seen an 8.9% increase.

Expenditure on ST-Max rose by 9.2% or £34 million, while activity on ST-Max has also increased, up by 2.3% or 5,550 completed episodes since 2020-21. At local authority level, this was mixed with some local authorities advising that provision was reduced as part of their response to the pandemic, whilst others reported that provision had increased. Full details are available in the COVID-19 insight within the data quality summary excel file.


Short Term Care to Maximise Independence (ST-Max)

ST-Max is a time limited period of short term support intended to maximise the independence of clients and to reduce or prevent longer-term reliance on social care. In 2021-22 there were 252,150 completed episodes of ST-Max where the outcome was known within the reporting period, up 5,550 (2.3%) since last year. Of these completed episodes of ST-Max 87.1% (219,580) were delivered for adults aged 65 and over.

It is important to note that one person may have multiple episodes of ST-Max within the year. As such, the 252,150 episodes of ST-Max related to 219,555 clients, which equates to an average of 1.1 completed episodes of ST-Max per client during the year.

The Primary Support Reason (PSR) describes the main reason why the individual requires social care support. ST-Max is typically provided to those clients with a primary support reason of physical support. This is where an individual requires help because they find physical things difficult to do by themselves. Physical support was stated as the primary support reason for 89.1% (224,735) of completed ST-Max episodes in the period.

The same can be seen when considering the £402 million (up £34 million since 2020-21) gross current expenditure on ST-Max, where 85.5% (£344 million) was allocated to services for clients with a PSR of physical support.

ST-Max is not only offered to new clients. Many (though not all) local authorities offer this to existing clients, who account for 11.1% (28,080) of the total completed episodes of ST-Max in the period. Given that existing clients already have long term needs, the outcomes are very different.

The following section will only discuss the outcomes for new clients (those not already in receipt of long term care). Data on outcomes for existing clients can be found in Table 27 of the Data Tables and data files accompanying this report.


Outcomes following an episode of ST-Max for new clients

A primary aim of ST-Max is to provide short term rehabilitative support allowing a client to avoid ongoing long term support needs.

More than a third of all completed episodes (36.0%) resulted in the client having no identified needs (up from 32.8% in 2020-21), therefore they had no further ongoing requirement for adult social care support.

As Figure 11 below shows, this was the most frequent outcome for both those aged 18-64 and aged 65 over. After this, the second most frequent outcome for both age groups is long term support being offered.

Source: SALT Collection, 2021-22, NHS Digital - See Table 21 in Data Tables.



Last edited: 16 February 2024 2:41 pm