What is social care?
Social care can mean support that ranges from a few hours of a week to 24-hours-a-day.
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
Relationships are about the people in your life. You might have different types of relationships like friendships, family relationships, or a boyfriend or girlfriend.
, or to do meaningful activities and be part of their local
community
A community is the people and places in an area.
.
Percentage of Government spending on support in England
Adults accessing long or short-term social care support in England
859,000 adults accessed long-term support during 2023/24.
Among adults aged 18 to 64, almost half (48%) of all social care activity was for people whose main support need was a learning disability.
Of these, only 14.1% of clients receiving care services were in a nursing setting. This proportion increases to 47.6% for clients in community support and rises further to 59.4% for those in residential care.
Over £8 billion was spent on short-term and long-term support for adults with a learning disability in 2019/20.
In 2023/24, overall public spending on adult social care in England was £27.1 billion, a 4.2% increase since 2022/23.
£22.4 billion was spent on long-term and short-term care for adults.
The remaining £4.7 billion was spent on other social services, such as assistive equipment and technology ( NHS The NHS is the National Health Service. The NHS gives free healthcare to everyone in the UK and includes things like your GP (doctors) surgery and hospitals. Digital, 2024).
Research references
Here you'll find full referencing for the Mencap research and statistics pages.