Social care statistics and adults with learning disabilities in England - 2023/24 update

Every year NHS Digital (now absorbed into NHS England) publish statistics collected by councils related to social care and adults with learning disabilities in England. Data tables for 2023/2024 (a lot of this involves delving into the CSV databases rather than it being easily available) were released on 31st October. As with my blogpost on this last year, I've just gone for 8 things that jumped out at me rather than a lot of detail and graphs:

1) After several years of continuous increases in the number of adults getting long-term social care up to 2019/20, since then the number of adults with learning disabilities getting social care support has stalled, particularly among younger adults. In 2023/24, 135,205 adults with learning disabilities aged 18-64 got social care support at some point in the year, less than the 135,430 people getting social care support in 2019/20. However, the number of adults with learning disabilities aged 65+ getting social care support has continued to increase, from 17,715 people in 2019/20 to 19,125 people in 2023/24.

2) Using projections about the increasing number of adults likely to need social care support from 2014/15 to 2023/24, there are between 13,000 and 24,000 adults with learning disabilities who need social care support but are not getting it.

3) While the number of adults with learning disabilities aged 18-64 living in residential care and nursing care continues to (slowly) decrease, the number of adults with learning disabilities aged 65+ living in residential care and nursing care has been increasing from 2020/21 to 2023/24. Adults with learning disabilities aged 65+ are now 22% of all adults with learning disabilities in residential care and 47% of all adults with learning disabilities in nursing care.

4) For the first time in 2023/24, over 50,000 adults with learning disabilities aged 18-64 getting social care support were living with family (or friends) on a settled basis (50,110 people) - well over a third (37%) of all working age adults with learning disabilities getting social care support. The number of adults with learning disabilities aged 18-64 getting social care support who were recorded as staying with family/friends on a short term basis (730 people in 2023/24) is smaller but increasing. 

5) Council spending on social care for adults with learning disabilities was £8.1 billion in 2023/24, up  12.1% (not inflation adjusted) from 2022/23.

6) Council spending on social care for adults with learning disabilities is over one third (36%) of all council social care spending on adults.

7) In 2023/24, £583 million in social care spending for adults with learning disabilities was paid for by 'client contributions'. This is an increase of 13.7% from 2022/23 and constitutes 7% of all council social care spending for adults with learning disabilities.

8) Among working age adults with learning disabilities getting council social care, the rate of people in any form of paid employment dropped to 4.7% in 2023/24, a historic low, with the gender employment gap remaining (5.1% for men; 4.1% for women).