Health and Care Experience Survey 2025 to 2026: National Report

Care, Support and Help with Everyday Living

In this chapter, we report the survey results on care, support and help with everyday living, including help that people get from any organisations, friends or family.

Use of Care, Support and Help

The distribution of people receiving help and support with everyday living has not changed since the last round of the survey:

• 12% of respondents received help or support with everyday living
• 4% did not have help, but felt they needed it
• 84% did not need help

Help with personal tasks (7%) and help with household tasks (7%) were the most common reasons for receiving help and support with everyday living.

Table 1: Help and support with everyday living received in the 12 months prior to the survey, survey year ending 2026, number of respondents and weighted percentages.

Note: Respondents were able to tick more than one response to this question so percentages will not sum to 100.

The survey asked those who received help or support with everyday living, how their help or support is funded.

•  50% responded “Me / My family pays”
• 46% responded “The National or Local Government”
• 26% responded “I receive unpaid care”
• 5% responded “Other, such as a charity”. 

Respondents were able to tick more than one response to this question so percentages will not sum to 100.

Experiences of Care Services

62% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the help, care or support they received improved their quality of life.

Figure 11: Person-centred care statements for care, support and help with everyday living, survey year ending 2026, weighted percentages.

Note: The questions were asked to people who responded that they were receiving care, support and help with everyday living.

Respondents who have received help or support for everyday living were asked to give their care a rating from “Excellent” to “Very Poor”, excluding any help and support received from friends and family in their rating.

• 64% rated their help, care or support services as good or excellent, similar to 2023 to 2024 (63%)
• 21% rated it as fair, the same as in 2023 to 2024
• 15% rated it as poor or very poor (16% in 2023 to 2024).

Unmet and Under-met Need

We asked those who received help and care services for everyday living and those who responded that they didn’t receive help, but felt they needed it: ‘If you are not receiving all the help and care services for everyday living that you feel you need, which options describe your situation? Please tick all that apply’.

44% of respondents selected ‘I am not sure I am eligible’ to describe their situation, if they were not receiving all the help or care they felt they needed.

Table 2: “If you are not receiving all the help and care services for everyday living that you feel you need, which options describe your situation?”, survey year ending 2026, number of respondents and weighted percentages.

Note: Respondents were able to tick more than one response to this question so percentages will not sum to 100.