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 2019/20. For 155,400 of these adults, a learning disability was the main reason they needed support.
Of these adults:
- approximately 153,145 accessed long-term support.
- approximately 2,255 completed short-term support designed to maximise their independence (NHS Digital 2020).
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.
Government spending on support in England
Government spending on support in England:
- Learning disability support (38%) - £6.1 billion.
- Physical support (43%) - £6.8 billion.
- Memory and cognition support (10%) - £1.5 billion.
- Mental health support (9%) - £1.4 billion.
- Sensory support (1%) - £0.17 billion.
Short and long term support for adults
Over 1 million adults in England received short-term or long-term social care support in 2019/20.
838,530 adults accessed long term support during 2019/20. For 153,145 or 18% of these adults, a learning disability was the main reason they needed support.
Over £6 billion was spent on short-term and long-term support for adults with a learning disability in 2019/20.
Of the £6 billion that the government spent on long-term support for adults with a learning disability in 2019/20 around 12% was in the form of direct payments (NHS Digital, 2020).
In 2019/20, overall public spending on adult social care in England was £19.7 billion.
£16 billion was spent on long-term and short-term care for adults.
The remaining £3.7 billion was spent on other social services, such as assistive equipment and technology (NHS Digital, 2020).
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