Javiera Cartagena-Farias
Local authorities need good information to plan adult social care fairly and efficiently. To do this, they must understand the characteristics and living circumstances of people in need of support, what services they receive, and how needs change over time. Surveys of people who receive publicly funded care are often not large enough and exclude people with serious cognitive difficulties. Routine data collected by local authorities may help address this gap.
This study aims to
In this study, we analysed anonymised records from two local authorities in England. The data included around 13,500 people aged 65 and over who received community-based social care between 2012 and 2015. The records contained information about people’s care needs, such as mobility, daily living activities, cognition, and safety, as well as the social care services they received. We used this information to identify groups of people with similar patterns of needs.
We identified four main groups of service users with different levels and types of need: people with low needs, people with moderate needs related to mobility or safety, people with moderate needs linked to cognitive difficulties (including dementia), and people with high needs across several areas of need. People in the highest-need group received the most intensive and costly support. Over time, many people’s needs increased, but for some they decreased. After two years, around 40% had higher levels of need, while about 10% showed improvement.
These findings suggest that routine assessment data could help local authorities better understand the needs of people receiving social care. This information could support better planning of services, more appropriate review schedules, and fairer allocation of resources.
