Respite Care Scotland, 2013

3. Summary of 2012/13 Respite Data

This statistical release presents the number of respite weeks provided to all age groups within Scotland. Section 3 contains a summary of the data for 2012/13. Information is provided on Overnight and Daytime weeks, as per previous publications, as well as an estimation of the number of weeks provided from converting Direct Payments expenditure into hours of care. Note that only 17 out of 32 local authorities were able to submit Direct Payments data, so the Scotland figure for the number of weeks provided as a result of direct payments shown here is less than the actual value. As the Direct Payments figures are in development, more information is contained in section 5 of this release.

In total there were 205,810 overnight and daytime respite weeks provided in Scotland, plus 12,640 weeks coming from Direct Payments. Charts 2 and 3 show that older people are provided with the majority of respite weeks, and that daytime weeks make up more cases than overnight and direct payments.

Chart 2: Number of Respite weeks by age

Chart 3: Number of Respite weeks by type of care, including direct payments

Source: Scottish Government 2012/13

* Direct Payments weeks have been estimated from expenditure, at a rate of £630 per week/£12 per hour.

Chart 4 shows that young adults (aged 18-64) appear to have the highest proportion of respite weeks during the daytime (almost two-thirds of all cases).

Chart 4: Proportion of Respite Weeks, including direct payments

Source: Scottish Government 2012/13

* Direct Payments weeks have been estimated from expenditure, at a rate of £630 per week/£12 per hour.

In early 2013, new guidance on respite weeks was issued to Local Authorities with the aim of getting better comparability between them. From 2013/14, all authorities should have adopted the new guidance and we expect to see more consistency in the rates of respite care. For this year, it should be noted that the different rates seen for each authority will be influenced by the types of respite care they are counting and the methodology they use to calculate hours and nights of respite care.

Chart 5 shows the rates of respite weeks for each local authority in Scotland.

Chart 5: Overnight and daytime respite weeks per 1,000 population in 2012/13, by Local Authority

Source: Scottish Government 2012/13

Populations: General Register Office for Scotland, mid-year estimate 2012