Care Home Data Review Summary Report

Rationale for Review

The Office for Statistical Regulation’s (OSR) report on Adult Social Care Statistics highlighted a number of issues with the current care home evidence base relating to data quality, coherence and data gaps. It noted that, whilst there are a number of data producers, the data landscape can be confusing and does not currently provide the insight required to meet the needs of stakeholders. The report provided a number of recommendations for improvement, including that social care data producers should work together to:

(i) identify and prioritise actions to address data gaps – including by making better use of existing data.

(ii) make social care statistics more coherent – including agreeing consistent definitions and terminology.

(iii) identify a long-term solution that enables better data sharing.

(iv) engage with stakeholders.

In addition, current data collections place a substantial burden on care home resources to provide data and there is a need to rationalise the data collections to minimise the resources for care homes and maximise the value of the data collected.

There have been a number of improvements made to address some of the points highlighted in the OSR report, however this review considers how organisations involved in care home reporting can work together to address the issues that remain.