Home Care Services, Scotland, 2012

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.

A substantially revised Home Care Services statistical data collection was introduced in 2010. Information is now collected for each person who receives a Home Care Service, a Meals Service and a Community Alarm or Telecare Service. Definitions have been kept consistent (where applicable) to maintain trends over time except for client groups. Client groups and definitions were revised in 2010, and multiple client groups were allowed for the first time. Client group analysis over time should therefore be treated with caution. Further details can be found in Section 4 'Background information on the collection of the data'.

All figures relate to the last week in March (that is the week which includes 30th March 2012) 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, 2000-2012

Source: Home Care Statistical Return (See Annex Table 2)

Key points

• In the last week in March 2012, there were 62,832 Home Care clients. The number of Home Care clients has declined over the last 5 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 increased, by around 4 per cent over the latest year to 712,894 hours (Chart 1).
• The average hours received by each client in a week has increased steadily (apart from a very slight decrease between 2008 and 2009), from 5.6 in 2000 to 11.3 in 2012. (Chart 2).
• The number of older people (aged 65 and over) receiving a home care service was around 57 clients per 1,000 population as at the last week in March 2012.
• Of the 62,832 home care clients in the last week in March 2012:
  • 33,937 (54 per cent) of Home Care clients also had a Community Alarm or another Telecare Service.
  • 6,460 (10 per cent) of Home Care clients also received a Meals Service.
• There were a total of 110,088 clients who had a Community Alarm and/or another Telecare Service as at the last week in March 2012.