Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report, England, 2023-24

Local authorities report information relating to unpaid carers in both the activity and finance returns. This information includes the number of carers being supported, and the costs associated with providing this support, as well as those that have been assessed or reviewed by the local authority but received no support in the year. Data on carers relates to unpaid carers of all ages who provide care on a regular basis for someone aged 18 or over.

Please Note: Local authorities report a variety of data quality issues relating to their carer data. For example, some local authorities have difficulties obtaining data from third parties, or some case management systems can only record carers and cared-for clients on a one to one basis. Full details of the data quality issues can be found in the accompanying excel data quality tables. It should also be noted that a number of local authorities advised us of continued data cleansing and as such year-on-year trends may be a result of this rather than service provision. This should be considered when examining the data relating to this area, and particularly when considering local trends

In 2023-24 360,815 carers were either supported or assessed/reviewed by the local authorities during the year, up 1.3% or 4,575 carers since 2022-23.

Gross current expenditure on social support: support to carers was £183 million in 2023-24, a drop of 6.1% from £195 million in 2022-23.

Source: SALT collection, 2023-24, NHS England - See Table 47 in Data Tables.