Section 4 - Hours of personal care services provided to Care at Home clients

This section presents data on the estimated number of hours of personal care per week provided to Care at Home clients. Estimated hours of personal care provided are only collected and presented for Care at Home clients, not for care home clients.

These estimates are calculated using data supplied by local authorities for the last week of Q4 of each year, in the Quarterly Monitoring Return. Please see the accompanying methodology and background information document for more information.

Full data, including the total estimated or reported number of hours of personal care provided to Care at Home clients in each local authority, are available in the accompanying tables.

Data quality notes for estimated hours of personal care services

These estimates are likely to be under-estimates of the true number of hours of personal care provided per client. This is because some of the local authorities have difficulty tracking the hours of care provided through certain kinds of self-directed support. There is more information in the data quality section.

These estimates have been calculated without data from two local authorities (Glasgow and/or Scottish Borders), who were unable to submit data on the number of hours of personal care provided. There is more information in the relevant sub-sections below.

The changes in estimated hours of personal care services between 2023-24 and 2024-25 are likely to have been caused, in part, by reported changes to reporting processes in three of the local authorities who submitted data 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 in both the numbers of clients receiving personal care at home, and the numbers of hours of care provided, which is likely to have been caused (at least in part) by their reporting changes. These changes may also have affected the calculated figures for estimated hours per client presented in this section, if the types of clients for whom data was submitted had also changed as a result of the reporting changes. This is likely to have been the case in at least one of the local authorities (Falkirk). We did not receive equivalent information from the other two. We are unable to quantify how much of the change in their submitted data is directly due to their reported changes in their reporting processes. Together these three local authorities make up around 6% of Scotland’s total population.

Age 65 and over

In 2024-25, across the 31 local authorities who submitted data (or for whom an estimate was made), an average of 10.3 hours of free personal care per week were estimated to have been provided to Care at Home clients aged 65 and over receiving personal care services. This is a 5% increase from the estimated average of 9.8 hours of care per week provided per client aged 65 and over calculated for 2023-24.

These numbers were estimated using data from all local authorities except for Glasgow City, who were unable to submit data on the number of hours of personal care provided, in either year. We did not have enough information available to estimate the missing data. Please see the sub-section on estimated, missing and revised data in the data quality section for more information.

Age 18 to 64

In 2024-25, across the 30 local authorities who submitted data (or for whom an estimate was made), an average of 20.7 hours of free personal care per week were estimated to have been provided to 18 to 64 year old Care at Home clients who received personal care services, in 2024-25. This is the same as was estimated for 2023-24.  

These numbers were estimated using data from all local authorities except Glasgow City and Scottish Borders, who were each unable to submit data on the number of hours of personal care provided in either year. We did not have enough information available to estimate the missing data. Please see the sub-section on estimated, missing and revised data in the data quality section for more information.

This means that, on average, Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 were estimated to have received approximately twice as many hours per week of free personal care, than Care at Home clients aged 65 or over, in 2024-25. This could be related to the differing nature of care needs amongst younger and older adults who receive Care at Home support. Data from Public Health Scotland in their Care at Home Statistics for Scotland 2023-24 dashboard showed that the most common client group reported for people supported with Care at Home services aged 18 to 64 were ‘Physical/Sensory Disability’, across the local authorities who submitted data. While for those in age groups of 65 years and over the most common client group reported was ‘Elderly/Frail’. These different client groups may have different care needs.However, please also note that the number of hours of care per client in this publication have been estimated from two slightly different sets of local authorities for the two age groups.