Breakdown of care home occupancy statistics: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Information requested
Monthly average care home occupancy data for the last six months on a national basis and broken down by Heath and Social Care Partnership (HSCP).
Response
I attach the information you requested in the following table in the attached spreadsheet.
Strengths and weaknesses:
The management information is submitted through the TURAS care home management tool and is selfreported by care homes. The information shown here is for adult care homes registered on the tool. Not all care homes submit information on a daily basis. This can vary considerably and could impact trends in the national data and by HSCP.
Information quality is dependent on care homes’ inputting accurate data. Checks are completed to ensure data robustness, however, these data are not currently subject to the full range of processes and quality assurance that would be for Official Statistics.
One known weakness with the presented management information is that updated number of resident places in a home are applied retrospectively in the TURAS tool. For example, if a care home registered on the tool updates their number of resident places from 50 to 51, the updated figure is applied to previously submitted information. When looking at occupancy rates on a monthly basis and by HSCP the overall impact should be minor considering the number of changes by care homes and the size of a change are relatively small.
In addition, the number of residents definition used in the TURAS care home management tool changed in October 2021. Previously this question was answered based on the number of residents in the home at the time of completing the daily huddle, which could have excluded residents in hospital or on overnight stays. The guidance for this question was updated so that the total number of residents should be provided instead. This includes, for example, residents who are in hospital or on overnight stays.
Official Statistics on care home occupancy are available.
The management information presented in table 1 below are not Official Statistics. We recommend using Official Statistics on care home occupancy from the Care Home Census for Adults in Scotland, available here from Public Health Scotland (PHS): https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/carehome-census-for-adults-in-scotland/care-home-census-for-adults-in-scotland-statistics-for-2011-to-2021-part-1/.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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