Section 3 - Care at Home clients receiving personal care services at home

This section presents data on the reported number of clients receiving Care at Home services, and how many of those are reported to receive personal care as part of that support.

The annual data presented in this section uses data submitted for the last week of quarter 4 as the snapshot of the situation for the year. There is more information on how the data for this publication was collected in the accompanying methodology and background information document.

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

Data quality notes for numbers of Care at Home clients and numbers of those receiving personal care services

The number and percentage of Care at Home clients reported as receiving personal care in this publication may be higher than the actual underlying position. This is because some local authorities do not distinguish between personal care at home and Care at Home in general, and class all Care at Home as personal care. On the other hand, some local authorities cannot report on personal care provided through some self-directed support (SDS) options, which may lead to their reported numbers being lower than the actual underlying position. Changes seen between years and quarters may be caused, in part, by clients’ care changing between SDS options that local authorities can report on, and those which they can’t (and the other way around).

Some local authorities only provide personal care at home, and not any other kinds of Care at Home. For those areas, the number of clients receiving personal care at home will be equal to the number receiving Care at Home in the accompanying tables.

The changes between 2023-24 and 2024-25 in numbers of people receiving Care and Home and personal care at home are likely to have been caused, in part, by reported changes to reporting processes in three of the local authorities in 2024-25. East Renfrewshire, Falkirk and Midlothian all reported making changes to their reporting on Care at Home clients for 2024-25, in order to provide a more complete picture of the numbers of clients supported, the hours of personal care provided and estimated expenditure. As they were unable to submit revised historic data, the numbers they submitted for 2024-25 showed an increase from 2023-24, which is likely to have been caused (at least in part) by their reporting changes. We are unable to quantify how much of the change in their submitted data is directly due to their reported changes in reporting processes. Together, these three local authorities make up around 6% of Scotland’s total population.

Please see the data quality section for more information.

Age 65 and over

In 2024-25, a reported 49,590 people aged 65 and over received Care at Home services. This is 2% higher than the 48,520 estimated for 2023-24.

In 2024-25, an estimated 47,560 - or an estimated 96% - of Care at Home clients aged 65 and over received personal care services as part of their Care at Home package. This is a 2% increase from the estimated 46,790 people who received personal care at home in 2023-24. The proportion of Care at Home clients aged 65 and over who received personal care was also an estimated 96% in 2023-24 (the same as in 2024-25).

The trend of numbers of clients aged 65 and over receiving personal care as part of their Care at Home package has closely followed the trend of people receiving Care at Home in general. This means that the proportion of Care at Home clients aged 65 and over who are estimated to have received personal care services as part of their Care at Home package has remained fairly constant over the last eight years, ranging from 94% to 96% (Figure 2).

Note: the source of this data changed between 2016-17 and 2017-18. As a result, comparisons between years before and after the change are not recommended. Although data for years before 2017-18 are shown in Figure 2, in the text we only make comparisons between years since 2017-18. For more information, please see the data sources, and limitations of data and further background sections of the accompanying methodology and background information document.

Figure 2: The vast majority of clients aged 65 and over who received Care at Home have received personal care services as part of their care package over the past 10 years. Since 2017-18 (when the data source changed), the estimated percentage has ranged from 94% to 96%.

The number of Care at Home (CaH) clients aged 65 and over, split by whether or not they received personal care services, Scotland, 2015-16 to 2024-25. The percentages located in the bottom bars show the reported or estimated percentage of CaH clients who received personal care services. The percentages above the top bars show the reported or estimated percentage of CaH clients who did not receive personal care services.

Source: Social Care Survey 2015-16 to 2016-17; Scottish Government Quarterly Monitoring Return 2017-18 to 2024-25. The dashed vertical line on the chart shows where the source of data has changed. Any comparisons of years before and after the data source changed should be treated with caution.

Age 18 to 64

The number of people aged 18 to 64 who received Care at Home in 2024-25 was reported as 17,710. This is a 6% increase from the estimated 16,690 for 2023-24. The number has also risen by 20% from the estimated 14,750 for 2018-19. The year 2018-19 was the last before Frank’s Law extended Free Personal Care to all adults assessed as needing personal care.

Of those Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 in 2024-25, an estimated 13,480 received personal care services as part of their care package. This is an increase of 5% from the 12,840 estimated for 2023-24.

The proportion of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 who received personal care services as part of their care package in 2024-25 was therefore an estimated 76%. This is a one percentage point decrease from 2023-24, when it was an estimated 77%.

Between 2019-20 and 2024-25, around three quarters (between 76% and 77%) of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 are estimated or reported to have received personal care services as part of their Care at Home package. This compares to an estimated 72% in 2018-19, the last year before Frank’s Law extended Free Personal Care to all adults. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3: Since 2019-20, around three quarters of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 are estimated or reported to have received personal care services as part of their care package. In 2018-19 (just before Frank’s Law came into effect) that percentage was an estimated 72%.

The estimated or reported number of Care at Home (CaH) clients aged 18 to 64 receiving personal care services (bottom bar), and the estimated or reported number of CaH clients aged 18 to 64 not receiving personal care services (top bar), Scotland, 2018-19 to 2024-25, across the local authorities who returned data for both numbers. The percentages on the bars show the reported or estimated percentage of CaH clients who did - or did not - receive personal care services as part of their care package.

Source: Scottish Government Quarterly Monitoring Return. The dashed vertical line marks the extension of Free Personal Care to all adults under Frank’s Law, which came into effect on 1 April 2019.

Please note: Scottish Borders were unable to provide data on numbers of clients aged 18 to 64 who received personal care at home in years 2018-19 and 2019-20, and these data were not estimated. Data from Scottish Borders on the total reported number of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 in 2018-19 and 2019-20 has therefore been excluded from calculations of percentages of Care at Home clients receiving personal care services in those years, and from the data displayed in figure 3. For years from 2020-21 to 2024-25, data for Scottish Borders on the numbers of clients aged 18 to 64 who received personal care at home were supplied or were estimated, and therefore their reported data on the total number of Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 have been included in the percentage calculations and in figure 3. For more information please see the data quality section.