Adult social care in England statistics: background quality and methodology

Updated to reflect improved methodology to calculate the estimated proportion of people receiving ASC services covered by a digital social care record (DSCR).

Updated to reflect addition of estimates of the proportion of adult social care users with a digital social care record.

Updated to reflect addition of the number of people receiving adult social care assessments, who have not received local authority long-term support in the previous 12 months, in client-level data tables.

Updated to reflect the inclusion of COVID-19 autumn and flu vaccination data for the 2024 to 2025 season.

Updated to reflect addition of the proportion of people receiving long-term support (rate per 100,000 population) alongside the number of people in client-level data tables.

Updated to reflect the end of the collection of flu vaccination data for the 2023 to 2024 season.

Updated to reflect the changes to the Capacity Tracker visiting question. Annex B updated to provide data quality assessment for CLD Q4 returns made by local authorities in April 2024 covering the first full year of activity (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024) - alongside updated list of 4 local authorities with data quality issues that affect the statistics reported in the July publication.

This methodology was last updated on 2 May 2024 alongside the May statistical report. Due to the pre-election period, the methodology will not be updated until after the election.

Updated to reflect the removal of COVID-19 full primary course and autumn 2023 booster vaccination data.

Updated to reflect addition of estimates of digital social care record uptake and changes to occupancy methodology.

Updated to reflect the inclusion of Capacity Tracker derived occupancy data and new figures and information from the client level data collection.

Updated to link to acute respiratory infection guidance, which has superseded the COVID-19 supplement to the 'Infection prevention and control in adult social care settings' guidance.

Updated to reflect the inclusion of COVID-19 autumn booster and flu vaccination data for the 2023 to 2024 season.

Updated to reflect when questions on COVID-19 vaccination in social care settings will become mandatory again in Capacity Tracker.

Updated to reflect questions on COVID-19 vaccination in social care settings becoming non-mandatory in Capacity Tracker until the seasonal booster campaign begins.

Updated to reflect the removal of testing data.

Updated to include a new section on equivalent data published by other UK nations.

Updated to reflect the end of the collection of flu vaccination data for the 2022 to 2023 season and a change in COVID-19 testing guidance in social care settings.

Updated to reflect the end of the collection of COVID-19 autumn booster vaccination data and the upcoming end of the collection of flu vaccination data for the 2022 to 2023 season.

Updated to include quality assurance and data validation methods used throughout this publication, and to reflect the upcoming removal of COVID-19 autumn booster vaccination data. Also updated to reflect this publication’s 'official statistics' badging.

Updated to advise about the correct use of the vaccination rate denominator, and to specify the statistical disclosure control methods applied to data throughout this publication.

Updated to specify the dates of the Adult Social Care Information (Enforcement) Regulations 2022, and to add information about a new NHS England publication on vaccination in care settings.

Updated the date for the introduction of the enforcement regulation for the Capacity Tracker data provision.

Updated to reflect changes in data download dates.

Updated to reflect changes to the vaccination data collection and the inclusion of flu data for the 2022 to 2023 season.

First published.