Official Statistics

Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025

Published 6 February 2025

Applies to England

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About these statistics

This is a monthly publication by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of official statistics on adult social care in England. Official statistics are produced in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and the Code of Practice for Statistics, and meet high standards of trustworthiness, quality and public value.

These statistics are assessed regularly and any improvements in quality are incorporated accordingly at the next available opportunity. The scope of the data included in this publication is also assessed to ensure the value of these statistics is maintained. Data collection may change in response to shifts in priorities, leading to corresponding adjustments in this bulletin’s reporting.

Introduction

This statistical bulletin provides an overview on a range of information on social care settings. We are transforming the content of the publication to capture a broader social care picture and to utilise new data as it becomes available. Details of new data and content can be found in the ‘Publication updates’ section, below.

This report provides information on:

• occupancy levels in care homes at national, regional and local authority level
• uptake of COVID-19 autumn 2024 vaccinations (care home and domiciliary care staff) and flu vaccinations (care home staff and residents and domiciliary care staff) for the 2024 to 2025 season in adult social care settings at national, regional and local authority level
• visiting in care homes at national, regional and local authority level
• staff absence rates due to COVID-19 in care homes and domiciliary care at national, regional and local authority level
• estimates of digital social care record (DSCR) uptake at national level, which are published as official statistics in development

Data on COVID-19 and flu vaccinations in adult social care settings, occupancy and visiting in care homes and staff absence in care settings in this publication is taken from Capacity Tracker. Capacity Tracker is a web-based digital insight tool originally developed by NHS England and the Better Care Fund to enable the system to better manage hospital discharges by identifying available capacity in care homes. It enables care homes to share their vacancies in real time, meaning hospital discharge teams and other health professionals can rapidly search availability throughout England. Since spring 2020, the tool has also been used by DHSC to gather COVID-19-related data to help monitor the sector’s response to the pandemic.

For more information on data sources, the data previously published as part of this report and other published sources of adult social care data, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Publication updates

Updates to current report

Official statistics in development: client level data

Long-term support statistics from client level data (CLD) were published for the first time in this report in March 2024 as official statistics in development and are updated on a quarterly basis.

Assessment statistics from CLD were published for the first time in this report in January 2025 as official statistics in development and will be updated on a quarterly basis.

Official statistics in development: digital social care records

Due to ongoing quality assurance of the data, the January 2025 release of DSCR uptake statistics was delayed. These statistics are partially presented in the February 2025 report.

This includes new national-level statistics on estimates of the proportion of people receiving adult social care services in England with a DSCR.

Due to ongoing quality assurance of the data, the release of new national-level statistics to supplement the current metric, on estimates of the proportion of care provider locations in England that are in the process of implementing a DSCR, has been delayed. We intend to publish this in a future release and will aim for the March 2025 publication.

Statistics on estimated uptake of DSCRs were published for the first time by DHSC in April 2024 as official statistics in development and will be updated on a quarterly basis.

Updates on future reports

The next publication will be released on 6 March 2025. Dates for future publications will be announced on the GOV.UK publication release calendar.

Official statistics in development: CLD and estimated uptake of digital social care records metrics will be updated in the April 2025 publication.

We are considering the possibility of ceasing the publication of seasonal vaccination data following the end of the autumn COVID-19 and 2024 to 2025 flu vaccination campaigns. If you are a regular or occasional user of this data and would be negatively affected by this change, please contact asc.statistics@dhsc.gov.uk.

Main points

This section discusses the main points of interest from the data tables, available on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page. For further detailed analysis on this data, see the ‘Further analysis’ section below.

Occupancy

As of the week ending 14 January 2025:

• 85.7% of beds in care homes were occupied
• 11.2% of beds in care homes were vacant and admittable
• 3.2% of beds in care homes were vacant and non-admittable

From February 2024 onwards, care home occupancy is calculated based on care homes that were active according to the most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) registration data update in Capacity Tracker at the end of that month’s reporting window.

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Figure 1: proportion of occupied, vacant and admittable, and vacant and non-admittable care home beds, England, 14 February 2024 to 14 January 2025

Source: Capacity Tracker

The main observations from figure 1 are:

• rates of occupied beds, vacant and admittable beds, and vacant and non-admittable beds have remained stable over the 12 months to January 2025
• the proportion of total beds occupied remained at or just above the 12-month average of 86.2% between August 2024 and December 2024, with this proportion decreasing slightly between November 2024 and January 2025
• the proportion of total beds vacant and admittable remained below the 12-month average of 10.9% between August 2024 and December 2024, with this proportion increasing slightly between November 2024 and January 2025
• the proportion of total beds vacant and non-admittable remained at or just below the 12-month average of 2.9% between May 2024 and November 2024, with this proportion increasing slightly between November 2024 and January 2025

This data can be found in table 4 of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page, in addition to data by region and local authority.

COVID-19 vaccination in adult social care settings

Within the 99.3% of older adult care home providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025, 8.6% of total staff had received an autumn 2024 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Within the 99.1% of younger adult care home providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025, 7.4% of total staff had received an autumn 2024 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Within the 97.4% of domiciliary care providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025, 9.4% of total staff had received an autumn 2024 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

All COVID-19 vaccination information for care home residents is published by NHS England on the NHS COVID-19 vaccinations page.

Flu vaccination in adult social care settings

Within the 99.3% of older adult care home providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025:

• 12.7% of total staff had received a flu vaccination for the 2024 to 2025 season
• 72.2% of total residents had received a flu vaccination for the 2024 to 2025 season

Within the 99.1% of younger adult care home providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025:

• 11.5% of total staff had received a flu vaccination for the 2024 to 2025 season
• 59.3% of total residents had received a flu vaccination for the 2024 to 2025 season

Within the 97.4% of domiciliary care providers who had updated their seasonal vaccination data as of 14 January 2025, 15.7% of total staff had received a flu vaccination for the 2024 to 2025 season.

As data is self-reported by care providers, COVID-19 and flu vaccination rates are affected by response rates. In previous years, due to the reporting of full primary course COVID-19 vaccinations, all active providers who had updated Capacity Tracker at any time were included in the vaccination figures. This year, only those who have updated Capacity Tracker since the first 2024 to 2025 seasonal vaccination questions were added on 28 August 2024 are included. For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Visiting in care homes

In the week ending 14 January 2025, 99.4% of care homes in England were able to accommodate residents receiving visitors. This figure has been stable since September 2022.

Figure 2: proportion of care homes accommodating or limiting visits for residents, England, 4 January 2022 to 14 January 2025

Source: Capacity Tracker

Note: the dotted lines in this chart represent the implementation of the changes in care home visiting guidance or changes to the visiting question in Capacity Tracker:

• A: from 31 January 2022, no limits on the number of named visitors, with testing and guidance to support safe visiting in place
• B: from 4 April 2022, no restrictions on visitation in care homes. Every care home resident should have one visitor who can visit in all circumstances (including during periods of isolation and outbreak)
• C: from 4 July 2022, the visiting questions in Capacity Tracker changed so care homes were asked whether residents had been allowed visits in or out of the care home in the last month, instead of in the last 7 days
• D: from 31 July 2022, providers are mandated to submit data on visiting on a monthly basis. From August 2022 onwards, the data points in this graph are monthly instead of weekly
• E: from 5 June 2024, the visiting questions in Capacity Tracker changed so care homes could no longer respond ‘only in exceptional circumstances’ to the question of whether residents had been allowed visits in and/or out of the care home in the last month

The main observation from figure 2 is that the proportion of care homes accommodating visiting for residents has broadly increased since mid January 2022, with the exception of slight decreases in early April 2022 and early July 2022. This number has stabilised since September 2022.

This data can be found in table 1 of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page, in addition to data by region and local authority.

Staff absences due to COVID-19

In the week ending 14 January 2025, 0.1% of care home staff and 0.1% of domiciliary care staff were absent due to COVID-19-related reasons.

These proportions stayed the same for both care home staff and domiciliary care staff in the last month.

Due to rounding, a small number of care home and domiciliary care staff absence proportions have been incorrectly suppressed in previous releases of this report. These proportions have been corrected in the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page. As a result, a small number of proportions presented will differ from historical reports. Corresponding counts in previous releases are unaffected.

Figure 3: proportion of staff absent due to COVID-19-related reasons, England, 4 January 2022 to 14 January 2025

Source: Capacity Tracker

Notes:

• the proportion of staff absent due to COVID-19-related reasons is not comparable across care settings
• the dotted line in these charts represents the move to monthly reporting after the start of the mandatory data provision implemented on 31 July 2022. From August 2022 onwards, the data points in these graphs are monthly instead of weekly

The main observations from figure 3 are:

• since the peak of 2.9% in January 2022, there have been 2 further spikes in care home staff absence rates, in late March 2022 and mid July 2022. For domiciliary care absence, following a peak of 4.8% in January 2022, there have been a further 3 spikes, in late March 2022, mid July 2022 and mid October 2022
• from November 2022 to April 2023, absence rates due to COVID-19-related reasons remained broadly stable in both care homes and domiciliary care settings, and decreased between April and June 2023
• between June 2023 and March 2024, absence rates remained the same among care home staff and decreased slightly in April 2024
• between June and October 2023, absence rates broadly increased among domiciliary care staff and decreased in November 2023. From November 2023 to February 2024, absence rates among domiciliary care staff remained the same, before decreasing slightly in March 2024, May 2024 and September 2024

This data can be found in tables 2 and 3 of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page, in addition to data by region and local authority.

Official statistics in development: digital social care records

Data on the estimated uptake of DSCRs is available up until the end of October 2024. As of October 2024, 74.7% of CQC-registered adult social care provider locations in England are estimated to have a DSCR, compared to 61.0% in October 2023.

Information on the uptake of DSCRs is self-reported. Adult social care provider locations registered with CQC are required to provide an updated position on their DSCR usage annually. This means that data reported each month represents a snapshot in time from a sample of roughly a twelfth of the CQC-registered adult social care provider location market. Due to the nature of this rotating sample, it is possible to see fluctuations in usage from one month to the next. To account for this potential for variation, the statistics presented in this report represent the reported use of DSCRs across the current and preceding 2 months.

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Figure 4: estimated proportion of adult social care provider locations that have a DSCR, England, February 2022 to October 2024

Source: CQC provider information return (PIR)

The main observation from figure 4 is that the proportion of adult social care provider locations estimated to have a DSCR has broadly increased between February 2022 and October 2024.

This data can be found in table 1 of the accompanying ‘Estimated uptake of digital social care records - official statistics in development, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025.

Further analysis

Occupancy in care homes

There was some regional variation in care home occupancy rates. As of the week ending 14 January 2025, the proportion of total care home beds that were:

• occupied varied from 83.3% in the East Midlands to 88.4% in London
• vacant and admittable varied from 8.8% in London to 13.5% in the East Midlands
• vacant and non-admittable varied from 2.5% in the North East and the West Midlands to 3.9% in Yorkshire and the Humber

Data on occupancy and response rates can be found in tables 4 and 8, respectively, of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page.

As noted above, from February 2024 onwards, care home occupancy is based on care homes that were active as of the most recent CQC registration data update in Capacity Tracker at the end of that month’s reporting window.

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

COVID-19 and flu vaccination in adult social care settings

Data on COVID-19 and flu vaccination and response rates can be found in the accompanying ‘COVID-19 and flu vaccination statistics, February 2025: data tables’ and ‘COVID-19 and flu vaccination response rates, February 2025: data tables’, respectively, on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page, in addition to data by region and local authority.

COVID-19 vaccination in adult social care settings

There is some regional variation in reported COVID-19 autumn vaccination uptake among each of the adult social care groups. As of 14 January 2025, reported vaccination uptake among:

• older adult care home staff varied from 6.0% in London to 10.1% in the South West
• younger adult care home staff varied from 5.0% in the East Midlands to 9.9% in the North East
• domiciliary care staff varied from 8.3% in the North West to 10.9% in the South West

Flu vaccination in adult social care settings

There is some regional variation in reported flu vaccination uptake among each of the adult social care groups. As of 14 January 2025, reported vaccination uptake among:

• older adult care home residents varied from 64.8% in London to 75.5% in the South West
• older adult care home staff varied from 10.6% in London to 13.9% in the North West
• younger adult care home residents varied from 53.9% in the North West to 66.5% in the North East
• younger adult care home staff varied from 7.2% in the East Midlands to 15.3% in London
• domiciliary care staff varied from 14.7% in the North East to 17.9% in London

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Accommodating COVID-safe visitation in care homes

In the week ending 14 January 2025, there was some regional variation in the proportion of care homes able to accommodate visits in or out of the care home for residents in all circumstances, ranging from 99.1% in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber to 99.8% in the South East.

Since 31 July 2022, this question is part of the subset of data that providers are mandated to submit on a monthly basis. For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

From 5 June 2024, the visiting questions in Capacity Tracker changed so care homes could no longer respond ‘only in exceptional circumstances’ to the question of whether residents had been allowed visits in and/or out of the care home in the last month.

Data on accommodating COVID-safe visitation and response rates in care homes can be found in tables 1 and 5, respectively, of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page, in addition to data by region and local authority.

Adult social care workforce

In care homes

In the week ending 14 January 2025 there was little regional variation, with regions reporting COVID-19-related staff absence rates between 0.0% and 0.1% (to one decimal place). Since the week ending 16 December 2024, absence rates decreased from 0.1% to 0.0% in the North East, and remained the same in all other regions.

Data on absences and response rates in care homes can be found in tables 2 and 6, respectively, of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page.

In domiciliary care

Absence rates in domiciliary care settings are not directly comparable with those in residential care homes.

In the week ending 14 January 2025, there was little regional variation, with regions reporting COVID-19-related staff absence rates between 0.0% and 0.2% (to one decimal place). Since the week ending 16 December 2024, absence rates decreased from 0.2% to 0.1% in the East Midlands and from 0.1% to 0.0% in the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber. Absence rates remained the same in all other regions.

Data on absences and response rates in domiciliary care settings can be found in tables 3 and 7, respectively, of the accompanying ‘Occupancy, visiting and workforce statistics, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page.

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Official statistics in development: digital social care records

Data on the estimated uptake of DSCRs is available up until the end of October 2024.

Adult social care users in England with a DSCR

As of October 2024, 84% of people cared for by CQC-registered adult social care providers in England are estimated to have a DSCR, compared to 70% in October 2023.

Data on the estimated coverage of DSCRs among people receiving adult social care services is available from October 2022, capturing information provided since August 2022. This follows the mandation of the Capacity Tracker data collection from 31 July 2022.

We have been undertaking quality assurance of the accompanying data table presenting the estimated proportion of people receiving adult social care services in England with a DSCR. We have decided to release these figures to 0 decimal places at present. These statistics may need to be revised in future, pending further quality assurance checks. We do not expect the statistics to change by more than 1 percentage point. Once quality checks are completed, we intend to release these figures to 1 decimal place.

This data can be found in table 2 of the accompanying ‘Estimated uptake of digital social care records - official statistics in development, February 2025: data tables’ on the Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: February 2025 page.

For more information, see the background quality and methodology for these statistics.

Terminology

Care home

Facilities providing residential care. The data in this bulletin refers to Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered care homes.

Older adult care homes

Care homes serving any older people (aged 65 and over) as identified from the latest CQC data on care homes in the ‘older people service’ user band. A small number of residents within care homes serving older people may be aged under 65.

Younger adult care homes

Care homes not serving any older people (aged 65 and over) as identified from the latest CQC data on care homes in the ‘older people service’ user band.

Domiciliary care

Services providing personal care for people living in their own homes. The data in this bulletin refers to domiciliary staff employed by independent CQC-registered providers.

Staff

Unless specified, staff can refer to staff directly employed by a provider and/or through an agency.

Active Capacity Tracker locations

Care homes which have a CQC active status, excluding those with a current dormancy start date.

Vacant and admittable beds

Beds which are vacant and available to accept an admission on the day of data submission, as self-reported by care providers in Capacity Tracker.

Vacant and non-admittable beds

Beds which are vacant but not available for admission on the day of data submission, as self-reported by care providers in Capacity Tracker. This includes the number of beds which are vacant and reserved.

About this data

These statistics are being published as a part of a wider landscape of statistics on adult social care. The Government Statistical Service compiles a UK adult social care database of official statistics on adult social care across the 4 nations of the UK. This is updated on a monthly basis.

The UK Statistics Authority conducted a review of adult social care statistics in England, which called for:

• better leadership and collaboration across different organisations publishing official statistics. This publication has been produced in collaboration with other statistics providers of COVID-19 adult social care data and DHSC will endeavour to work with various stakeholders as more data is published through this publication
• addressing of gaps in available data, particularly in privately-funded care. This bulletin aims to plug some of that gap by including data on residents privately funding their care in addition to those funded by local authorities
• improving existing official statistics. Statistics derived from Capacity Tracker are badged as official statistics and more data will be added iteratively based on user needs

Data sources

Data on COVID-19 and flu vaccinations in adult social care settings, occupancy and visiting in care homes and staff absence is taken from self-reported data submitted by care providers in England through a data collection and insight tool called Capacity Tracker. From 31 July 2022, this data is part of the subset of data that providers are mandated to submit on a monthly basis.

The long-term support and assessment statistics in this publication are created using CLD. The CLD collection is the first national collection of social care records, covering requests for support, assessments, reviews and services arranged or provided by local authorities as part of their duties under the Care Act 2014.

More detailed information about data sources can be found in the background quality and methodology for these statistics. This document also includes detailed information on:

• data coverage
• data quality
• relevance
• accuracy and reliability
• timeliness and punctuality
• comparability and coherence
• accessibility and clarity
• cost and burden

Revisions

Any revisions to past publications will be in line with DHSC’s revision policy and highlighted in future publications accordingly.