Free Personal and Nursing Care, Scotland, 2022-23

This section presents the latest available data on the number of Care Home residents receiving Free Personal Care (FPC) and Free Nursing Care (FNC) payments.

Age 65 and over

On the last day of 2022-23, 28,080 long-stay residents aged 65+ were supported in Care Homes in Scotland. Around 38% (10,790) of these were self-funding residents receiving FPC and/or FNC payments. This number of FPNC recipients is 3% higher than the 10,520 recorded in 2021-22, and 5% higher than 10,320 in 2013-14. 

However, this was not a steady increase. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, the number of Care Home residents aged 65 and over receiving FPNC payments increased to around 10% above the 10-year average, reaching a high of 11,600 in 2018-19, before decreasing again in 2020-21. See Figure 1.

Of the 10,790 self-funding residents aged 65 and over who received any FPNC payments in 2022-23, 7,340 (68%) received both FPC and FNC payments. (The remaining 3,450 (32%) received FPC payments only). The percentage of FPNC recipients receiving both FPC and FNC has increased from 61% in 2013-14, with this most recent year’s proportion being a 10-year high.

The remainder of Care Home residents did not receive either FPC or FNC, or are publicly funded under the National Care Home Contract.

The 38% of long-stay residents supported in Care Homes who recieved FPC and/or FNC in 2022-23 is similar to the proportion from the previous year, but this proportion has increased over the last 10 years, from 34% in 2013-14. The majority of this increase occurred between 2017-18 and 2018-19, when it rose to a 10-year high of 39%.

Full data is available in the accompanying tables, both at Scotland total and Local Authority level.

Figure 1: Over the last 10 years, the number of long-stay Care Home residents aged 65 and over has ranged between a high of 30,800 (in 2014-15) and a low of 27,580 (in 2021-22).

The number of long-stay Care Home residents aged 65 and over who received both FPC and FNC payments (bottom bar), FPC payments only (middle bar), and who did not receive FPC or FNC payments (top bar), Scotland, 2013-14 to 2022-23. Note: data points were collected on the last day (top bar) or week (bottom 2 bars) of the financial year – i.e. the end of March.

Source: Scottish Government Quarterly Monitoring Return. Please note that the total of the three bars for each year may very slightly differ to the total number of Care Home residents for that year due to figures being rounded.

Age 18 to 64

140 self-funding Care Home residents aged 18 to 64 received FPNC payments (FPC and/or FNC) during the last week of 2022-23. This represents 4% of the 3,340 long-stay Care Home residents from this age group who were supported in Care Homes on the final day of 2022-23, a much smaller proportion than the 38% for residents aged 65 and over.

80 (59%) of these 140 self-funding residents aged 18 to 64 who received any FPNC payments in the final week of 2022-23 received both FNC and FPC payments, slightly fewer than 63% in 2021-22, but an increase from 54% in 2020-21.

Consequently, 60 residents (41% of 18-64 year old FPNC reciepients) received FPC payments only in 2022-23.

Although there have been noticeable changes in these percentages year-to-year, these changes should be treated with caution due to the small underlying numbers of 18-64 year olds receiving FPNC in Care Homes. However, over the last 9 quarters for which data is available, consistantly over half of 18-64 year-old FPNC recipients received FNC together with FPC (54-65%).

For context, following an 8% rise from 3,100 in 2018-19 Q4 (prior to the introduction of Franks’ Law) to 3,340 in 2019-20 Q1, the overall number of long-stay residents aged 18 to 64 supported in Care Homes has remained consistent.

Full data is available in the accompanying tables, both at Scotland total and Local Authority level.