National Care Service - social care support and service provision: evidence

2. Context: Social Care Recipients

Social care support can be provided to people of all ages and encompasses a range of services. These can be provided in the home or wider community or in residential settings such as care homes. In this section, social care support/ services are defined as services provided to people who have had an assessment or review of their needs and who, as a result of this assessment, received support or services which was provided or funded by the local authority. This paper is focused on social care. While support for unpaid carers is an important aspect of social care support, it is not covered in this paper.

The main source of information on people being supported by social care services is PHS’s Insights in Social Care publication. The latest publication shows that an estimated 1 in 25 people of all ages in Scotland (231,925 people) were reported as receiving social care support and services at some point during 2020/21^[1]. This included:

• Some 44,000 people received funding towards a long stay care home place in Scotland during 2020/21, this is a decrease of around 1% from 2019/20. In addition, a further 6,300 people were supported during a short stay in a care home, such as for respite or for reablement during this time. This is a decrease of around 36% from 2019/20^[2].
• An estimated 130,130 people had an active community alarm and/or a telecare service.
• Around 93,280 people in Scotland received care at home for the whole or part of the year ending 31 March 2021.
• In 2020/21 the rate per 1,000 population of people receiving social care support through any Self-directed Support option increased from 18.2 (2019/20) to 20.6 people per 1,000 population^[3].

Source: Public Health Scotland