Social care - research and statistics

What is social care?

Social care can mean support that ranges from a few hours of a week to 24-hours-a-day.

Over 1 million adults in England accessed long-term or short-term social care support in England in 2017/18. For 150,100 of these adults, a learning disability was the main reason they needed support.

Of these adults:

• approximately 147,920 accessed long-term support
• approximately 2,180 completed short-term support designed to maximise their independence (NHS Digital 2018).

Social care can be very important in helping people with a learning disability to live their life in the way they choose, like anyone else.

Support can be many things, including supporting somebody to get up and get dressed, to develop friendships and relationships, or to do meaningful activities and be part of their local community. 

Short and long term support for adults

Over 1 million adults in England received short-term or long-term social care support in 2017/18.

857,770 adults accessed long term support during 2017/18. For 147,920 or 17% of these adults, a learning disability was the main reason they needed support.

Over £5 billion was spent on short-term and long-term support for adults with a learning disability in 2017/18.

Of the £5.5 billion that the government spent on support for adults with a learning disability in 2017/18, around 12% was in the form of direct payments (NHS Digital, 2018).

In 2017/18, overall public spending on adult social care in England was £17.9 billion.

£14.5 billion was spent on long-term and short-term care for adults.

The remaining £3.4 billion was spent on other social services, such as assistive equipment and technology (NHS Digital, 2018).