Free Personal and Nursing Care, Scotland, 2022-23

This section presents data on the number of clients receiving Personal Care at Home, and the total numbers of clients receiving Care at Home.

65 and over

In the last week of 2022-23, 47,250 older people (aged 65+) received Care at Home services. This is a 2% increase from 46,130 in 2021-22.

45,150, or 96% of these older Care at Home clients received Personal Care services as part of their Care at Home package in the last week of 2022-23. Between 2017-18 and 2020-21, this number of people had fluctuated between a high of 48,360 (in 2018-19) and a low of 46,220 (in 2019-20). The greatest change was between 2020-21 and 2021-22, when this suddenly fell by 7% to a 6-year low of 43,760. The most recent figure from 2022-23 represents a 3% increase from this 6-year low. (See Figure 2).

The trend of clients receiving personal care as part of their Care at Home package has closely followed the trend of older people receiving Care at Home in general. This means that the proportion of older people receiving Care at Home who received Personal Care services as part of their care package has remained fairly constant over the last 6 years, ranging from 94% to 96% (see Figure 2).

It is worth noting that some Local Authorities (LAs) do not distinguish between Personal Care at Home and Care at Home in general, classing all Care at Home as personal care. This may have artificially inflated the national percentage of Care at Home classed as personal care reported above.

Figure 2: The vast majority of clients aged 65 and over who received Care at Home have received Personal Care services as part of their care package over the past 10 years. This percentage has ranged from 94% to 96% over the past 6 years (since the data source changed).

The number of Care at Home (CaH) clients aged 65 and over, split by whether or not they received Personal Care services, Scotland, 2013-14 to 2022-23. Percentages over the bottom bars denote the percentage of CaH clients who received Personal Care services, while percentages above the top bars denote the percentage of CaH clients who did not receive Personal Care services.

Source: Social Care Survey 2013-14 to 2016-17; Scottish Government Quarterly Monitoring Return 2017-18 to 2022-23. The dashed vertical line on the chart shows where the source of data has changed. As a result, any comparisons of years before and after this should be treated with caution.

18 to 64

16,670 people aged 18 to 64 received Care at Home services in the last week of 2022-23, a 4% increase from 16,060 last year. This figure had fallen slightly from the previous year, but has risen by 13%, or an average of 3% per year over the last 4 years from 14,750 in 2018-19. (See Figure 3)

12,460 of these Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 received Personal Care services as part of their care package in the last week of 2022-23, also a 4% increase from 11,950 last year. This is an 18% increase from the 10,550 18-64 year olds receiving Personal Care at Home in 2018-19, just prior to the extension of FPC to those aged 18 to 64.

This means that over the last 5 years, around three quarters (between 72% and 76%) of Care at Home clients aged 18-64 received Personal Care services as part of their care package. (See Figure 3)

Figure 3: The number of Care at Home clients aged 18-64 has increased by 13% from 14,750 in the last week of 2018-19 (just before Frank’s Law came into effect) to 16,670 in the last week of 2022-23. Around three quarters of these clients received personal care as part of their care package over these 5 years.  

The number of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 receiving Personal Care services, and the number of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 not receiving Personal Care services, Scotland, 2018-19 to 2022-23. Labels on bars denote the percentage of Care at Home clients who did or did not receive Personal Care services as part of their care package.

Source: Scottish Government Quarterly Monitoring Return. The dashed vertical line marks the extension of Free Personal Care under Frank’s Law, which came into effect on 1 April 2019.