What is social care?
Support can range from a few hours of support a week to full 24-hours-a-day support.
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 crucial 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
Government spending on support in England
- Learning disability support (38%) - £5.5 billion.
- Physical support (43%) - £6.2 billion.
- Memory and cognition support (9%) - £1.3 billion.
- Mental health support (9%) - £1.2 billion.
- Sensory support (1%) - £0.16 billion.
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, and the remaining £3.4 billion was spent on other social services, such as assistive equipment and technology (NHS Digital, 2018).
Research references
Here you'll find full referencing for the Mencap research and statistics pages.