Section 2 - Expenditure on FPNC in care homes

This section presents total estimated expenditure, for the 2024-25 financial year, on Free Personal Care (FPC) and Free Nursing Care (FNC) payments (together, FPNC payments) to self-funding care home residents. Expenditure data on FPNC payments relate only to self-funding care home residents.

The weekly values of FPNC in 2024-25 were:

• £248.70 for Free Personal Care; 6.7% higher than 2023-24 (£233.10)
• £111.90 for Free Nursing Care; 6.7% higher than 2023-24 (£104.90)

The value of FPNC payments since 2003-04 is given in Appendix 1 of the methodology and background information document.

Note that all values presented in this section are described as estimated. This is because they have been calculated using the number of care home residents reported as receiving FPNC in each quarter, provided to us by local authorities through the Quarterly Monitoring Return (or estimated, where this data was not provided). There is more information on how these expenditure estimates are calculated in the data quality section of the accompanying methodology and background information document.

Full data is available in the accompanying tables, both at Scotland and local authority level.

Age 65 and over

In 2024-25, an estimated £186 million was spent by local authorities on FPNC payments to self-funding care home residents aged 65 and over. This is an 8% increase from the estimated £173 million spent in the previous year.

An estimated £143 million of this total expenditure on FPNC in care homes was spent on FPC payments (77% of total expenditure for those aged 65 and over), with the remaining estimated £44 million (23%) spent on FNC. These are the same as the estimated proportions of FPC and FNC expenditure in the previous year.

Note: since 2021-22, expenditure values for care home residents aged 65 and over have been estimated using data on numbers of clients receiving FPNC submitted by local authorities in the Quarterly Monitoring Return. Before then, they taken from the Local Financial Return 03 (LFR03). Data from before 2021-22 is therefore not comparable with data since 2021-22. Please see 'expenditure data' in the limitations of data and further background section of the accompanying methodology and background information document for more information on these changes.

Age 18 to 64

In 2024-25, an estimated £2.4 million was spent by local authorities on FPNC payments to self-funding care home residents aged 18 to 64. This is a 10% increase from the estimated £2.2 million spent the previous year.

An estimated £1.9 million was spent on FPC payments for 18 to 64 year olds in 2024-25 (78% of the total expenditure on FPNC for 18 to 64s), with the remaining estimated £0.5 million (22%) spent on FNC. These are the same proportions as in the previous year.