Free Personal and Nursing Care: Methodology and background information, 2023-24

This document provides more detailed information on the background to the Free Personal and Nursing Care Scotland 2023-24 publication and how it was produced. It includes:

• definitions of the terms used in the publicaiton, and more information on who is eligible for Free Personal Care (FPC) and/or Free Nursing Care (FNC) (together, FPNC) in Scotland
• a description of the source of data used in the publication (the Quarterly Monitoring Return) in Data sources
• a description of the quality control process from receipt of returns to publication in Data quality
• more information on the limitations of the data in Limitations of data and further background. This includes an explanation of how the expenditure values were estimated, including the differences between values for spend on FPNC for care home residents and spend on FPC for Care at Home clients.

There are also two appendices:

• Appendix 1: FPNC payment amounts. Details the weekly FPNC payment amounts for Care Home residents, from 2003-04 until present
• Appendix 2: Collected and calculated variables. Lists the eight variables collected from local authorities in the Quarterly Monitoring Return, together with how they were used to calculate the 11 variables contained in the tables accompanying the publication. This also shows how the table numbers and variable names in the Quarterly Monitoring Return and publication tables relate to each other.

The methodology and background publication for the previous FPNC publication in 2022-23 can be accessed from the Free Personal and Nursing Care collection webpage.

How to access the publication and data

The Free Personal and Nursing Care 2023-24 publication that this methodology and background information document accompanies can be read online.

Two spreadsheets showing the rounded data used in the publication can be accessed via the supporting documents page. They present values both at Scotland total and local authority level. A separate spreadsheet is published for adults aged 18 to 64, and adults aged 65 and over.

Past editions of this publication and accompanying data tables, dating back to 2010-11, can also be accessed via the Free Personal and Nursing Care collection.

For other data and publications relating to social care produced by the Scottish Government, please see our Health and Social Care Analysis webpage.