Official Statistics

Measures from ASCOF, England: 2024 to 2025 - methodologies for metrics derived from client level data

Published 18 December 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

This document outlines the methodologies and data processing steps for creating 6 measures (also called metrics) in the adult social care outcomes framework (ASCOF) from client level data (CLD), previously derived from the annual short and long term (SALT) data collection. The methods build upon the central transformation principles developed by NHS England.

Working with local authorities through the CLD reference group, the metrics have been adapted based on feedback to improve accuracy and comparability with figures previously derived from SALT and to minimise the impact of known data quality issues. Nevertheless, CLD derived metrics are not expected to perfectly match SALT equivalents given the change in the data source, particularly the change in method of collection from aggregate to event level reporting.

The methodologies outlined in this document represent our best efforts to measure outcomes using CLD to date. However, CLD remains a relatively new data source, and we continue to work with local authorities and receive feedback on uses of the data. Further refinements to the methods may, therefore, be considered in the future where necessary.

These methodologies reflect the release 1 of the CLD specification.

Common data processing steps

Summary of data processing

1. Processing the data for analysis

There are 2 methods of selecting and processing CLD submissions, depending on the data required for analysis:

• single submissions for analysis requiring data covering a period of 12 months
• joined submissions for analysis requiring data covering more than 12 months

Joined submissions are required for the calculation of metrics where definitions and/or the selection of cohorts rely on information before or after the statistical reporting year about individuals’ care and event histories, for example, identifying ‘new’ clients.

The main processing steps when producing these tables are:

• selecting submissions covering the required analysis period and filtering the data to events ending in the period and services ongoing during the period
• data cleaning of priority fields (see table below). Invalid values are replaced where the equivalent valid value can be confidently identified
• amending event end dates to match the date of death where this precedes the service end date, or to match the reporting period end date where the service end date appears to have been erroneously left blank (the service has a blank end date in one submission but is not included in the next submission)
• selecting cohorts - all metrics in ASCOF derived from CLD exclude carer related events by only including data with the client type ‘service user’. The statistics also only include people aged 18 and over so people are removed where they are younger than 18 at the time of the event
• selecting submissions:
  • single submissions - data is selected by taking the latest submission. The reporting period stated in the submission is used
  • joined submissions - data is selected by combining submissions with prior periods going back to 1 April 2023. The reporting period stated in the submission is not taken as given, instead it is derived by checking the data in each submission
• deduplication - the table below lists the fields used to determine unique events

Table 1: fields used in the deduplication of data sets

Field	Requests	Assessments	Services	Reviews
Local authority code	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Derived person identifier (NHS number unless missing, then local authority identifier)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Event start date	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Event end date	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Client type	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Request: route of access	Yes	No	No	No
Assessment type	No	Yes	No	No
Service type	No	No	Yes	No
Service component	No	No	Yes	No

2. Creating person identifiers

The anonymised person identifier used to distinguish individuals throughout the metrics is the pseudonymised traced NHS number in the first instance. If this is missing, the pseudonymised local authority provided NHS number is used. If both NHS numbers are missing, the local authority unique person identifier is used.

3. Cleaning the data

For variables in the CLD specification that have a defined list of values, efforts have been made to replace invalid values where there is a clear corresponding valid value. Those invalid values that cannot be replaced are recorded as unknown. The ‘CLD data specification’ is in the ‘ASC CLD specification’ section of the AGEM CLD information pages for local authorities.

4. Identifying latest person details

A data set is created which contains the most recent known details for each individual in CLD for the fields listed below. The data set supports person-level analysis by selecting a single, consistent record per individual for a given reporting period.

Fields included in the latest person details

For each person in scope, the latest known value is derived for the following fields:

• gender
• ethnicity
• date of birth
• date of death
• employment status
• accommodation status (with imputation logic, described below)
• carer status (based on linked carer records and the ‘has unpaid carer’ field)
• primary support reason
• age and age bands
• client funding status

Deriving the latest known information

The latest details for each person are selected by applying the following prioritisation:

• known values are preferred over unknown or null values
• if multiple known values exist, the value associated with the most recent submission reporting period is selected
• if multiple values continue to exist, the value associated with the most recent event end date is selected (with nulls prioritised for open and ongoing service events)
• if multiple values continue to exist, the value associated with the most recent event start date is selected
• if multiple records remain after these steps, the final value is classified as ‘unknown - conflicting’, except for age, where the earlier birth date is chosen, and date of death, where the later date is chosen

Special handling of accommodation status

Additional logic is applied to accommodation status for people whose most recent records are marked as ‘unknown’ or if the records are determined as unknown because they are conflicting. For these individuals, the most recent service type and service component values are used to infer likely accommodation type where possible.

Examples include:

• if the latest service type is long-term nursing care, the accommodation status is reported as ‘registered nursing home’
• if the person is receiving long-term support in the community with a service component of housing support, the accommodation status is recorded as ‘unknown - at home’
• if the person is receiving long-term support in the community without an identified housing-related component, the accommodation status is recorded as ‘unknown - community’

Age and age bands

Age is calculated by taking the difference between the individual’s date of birth and the event end date (or reporting period end date if the event end date is null), producing an age at event end date field. Individuals are then grouped into standard age bands as required for downstream analysis.

Data output

The final output is stored in a ‘latest person details’ table, which is joined to other metric-specific tables using the unique person identifier.

Not all metrics require or use every field from the latest person details table. Which fields are used depends on the requirements of each specific metric and whether the latest details are appropriate to use.

ASCOF 2A

This is the proportion of people who received reablement during the year, who previously were not receiving services, where no further request was made for ongoing support.

ASCOF 2A cohort

The cohort includes people aged 18 or older who received short-term support to maximise independence (ST-Max), also referred to as reablement, who had not received long-term support in the previous 3 months, that is, ‘new’ clients.

The metric includes episodes of ST-Max support that led to distinctive sets of outcomes (sequels), listed in appendix 1. ST-Max episodes are excluded where the sequel is uninformative as to the success or otherwise of the reablement.

The denominator counts all ST-Max episodes included in the metric, and the numerator counts only episodes with sequel values that indicate successful reablement, for example, if no further support was needed.

The following steps are taken to select the relevant ST-Max events: 

1. Using the joined submissions table (see ‘Processing the data for analysis’ in the ‘Common data processing steps’ section above), ST-Max events are selected where the recorded event end dates fall within the statistical reporting year of interest.
2. ST-Max events that occur within 7 days of one another are treated as part of the same ST-Max ‘episode’, creating a cluster of ST-Max records. Among the constituent records, the earliest start date and latest end date are used to define the episode duration. All remaining episode details are taken from the record with the latest event end date, and if there is a tie, a hierarchy is applied to the event outcome field to determine the sequel (see appendix 2).
3. ST-Max episodes are excluded if the individual had an active long-term support event in the 91 days prior to the ST-Max episode start date (‘new’ client definition).
4. ST-Max episodes are included if the person was 18 or older on the ST-Max event end date.

Note: in SALT, it was required that ST-Max episodes counted in this metric should have a prior request. The data coverage has shown us that local authorities have very different internal procedures and recording practices for requests for reablement. Therefore, in consultation with local authorities, the requirement for prior requests has been removed.

Determining 7-day sequels

Sequels describe the immediate outcome after reablement. They are used to identify whether a person went on to require further support or, alternatively, whether their reablement successfully helped them regain independence. Sequels are identified by considering any services that started during the ST-Max episode or in the 7 days after it ended, as well as the information captured in the event outcome field of any assessments or reviews occurring in the same period.

The 7-day period was chosen to focus on short-term outcomes. This follow-up period was agreed in consultation with the CLD local authority reference group. Events starting after 7 days are not considered, so some related events may be missed, for example services that took longer to organise. However, extending the time window would risk including unrelated outcomes, so the 7-day period was agreed as the best choice to balance risks.

The steps below are applied sequentially to determine the sequel:

1. If there is a date of death prior to, or within 7 days of the end of the ST-Max episode, then set the ST-Max sequel is set to ‘No further action: deceased’.

2. If the event outcome field of the ST-Max episode is ‘Admitted to hospital’, then the sequel is set to ‘Admitted to hospital’.

3. If there is a service that started after the ST-Max start date and within 7 days of the ST-Max end date, then the sequel is derived from the service type field. If there is more than one such service, then the hierarchy listed in appendix 3 is applied to choose one of them to be the sequel.

4. ‘Concluding’ event outcomes are identified from the event outcome fields of:

• the ST-Max episode
• any requests, assessments or reviews that took place within 7 days after the ST-Max episode
• any assessments or reviews that took place within the 2 weeks prior to the ST-Max end date

These are mapped to sequels using the table in appendix 1. If multiple ‘concluding’ event outcomes are identified, the sequel is derived by first applying the hierarchy in appendix 2.

5. If equipment was delivered during the ST-Max episode, then the ST-Max sequel is set to ‘Short term support: ongoing low level’.

6. If no further events have been found within the 7 days and no concluding sequel has been identified in the event outcomes, the sequel is set to ‘No further action - reason not found’. It is excluded from the headline metric since it does not provide reliable information about the outcome.

Notes on the above procedure

A ‘concluding’ event outcome is one where a definitive outcome can be determined, in contrast to an ‘intermediate’ outcome where further future events are planned (see appendix 2).

When the sequel event ‘service type’ is ‘short term support: other short term’, and the ‘service component’ is ‘short term nursing care’, or ‘short term residential care’, the sequel is categorised as ‘short term support: residential or nursing care’. For all other service components under this service type, the sequel designation is ‘short term support: other short term’.

Appendix 1 lists all possible sequels and whether the ST-Max service is included in the numerator or denominator for this metric, based on whether they are likely to lead to requiring further long-term support or not.

ASCOF 2B and 2C

The number of adults aged 18 to 64 (2B) or 65 and over (2C) whose long-term support needs are met by admission to residential and nursing care homes, per 100,000 population.

ASCOF 2B and 2C cohort

The cohort for this metric includes people aged 18 or older who were admitted to long-term residential or nursing care provided or organised by the local authority, with a start date within the reporting year. This includes people who fund their own care where they have asked the local authority to organise their care under Section 18(3) of the Care Act 2014 (‘full-cost clients’) and is irrespective of the location of the care home.

The metric excludes people who had already received local authority provided or organised long-term residential or nursing care within the previous 12 months.

People who started as self-funders and later received local authority support when their funds depleted may appear in this metric as new admissions. To partially reduce double counting, we exclude cases where long-term residential or nursing care ended after a 12-week property disregard and the person became a self-funder. These are identified by an event outcome of ‘No further action: self-funded client or under 12 week disregard’.

The denominator is the population estimate for mid-2024 published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), for each local authority and age band.

ASCOF 2D

This is the proportion of people aged 65 and over who were discharged from hospital into reablement and who remained in the community in the 12 weeks following discharge.

This metric consists of 2 parts:

• part 1: the proportion of people aged 65 and over who were discharged from hospital into reablement who remained in the community in the 12 weeks following discharge
• part 2: the proportion of people aged 65 and over who were discharged from hospital who received reablement services

Note that ASCOF 2D is a new metric for ASCOF from 2024 to 2025 onwards which is derived from linking CLD linked with secondary uses service (SUS) data using the pseudonymised NHS number. SUS is a comprehensive national database that collects and stores hospital activity data from NHS providers.

SUS data is currently used because it is accessible within the same environment as CLD, allowing timely analysis of operational data sets. Hospital episode statistics (HES), a cleaned version of SUS, is the preferred data set, but its future use will depend on consideration of timeliness, availability and access.

This metric replaces the previous SALT metric which measured whether people were still at home 91 days after hospital discharge. This metric continues to measure outcomes for people who received reablement after hospital discharge, but is a distinctly different metric and, therefore, not directly comparable with the previous 2D metric.

ASCOF 2D cohort

ASCOF 2D focuses on outcomes for people aged 65 or over who went into hospital and were not receiving local authority arranged long-term residential care, nursing care or prison support at the time of their hospital admission. The cohort includes people who were receiving local authority arranged long-term community support, as well as those not receiving any support through the local authority. This cohort forms the basis for both parts of the metric.

SUS data is used to identify people who have been discharged from hospital and is linked with CLD through the pseudonymised NHS number to identify people who received adult social care services.

The steps used to create the metrics are described in order and therefore start with the creation of part 2.

Part 2 - denominator

The total number of hospital discharges of people aged 65 and over from hospitals in England. The following criteria are applied to select the relevant discharges:

• the discharge date is within the reporting period (that is, 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025)
• patients are aged 65 years or older at the time of discharge
• patients with a zero-day length of stay (day cases) are excluded
• discharges are from acute and community hospitals, excluding discharges from mental health hospitals
• for the breakdown of discharges by local authority, this is identified from the patient’s usual residence recorded in SUS

Part 2 - numerator and part 1 - denominator

The number of people aged 65 and over who were discharged from hospital where reablement services were provided (that is, the same as the denominator of part 1).

The following steps are used to select the relevant discharges into reablement:

• discharges which occur during the reporting year are selected from SUS based on the criteria outlined in ‘part 2 - denominator’
• reablement events that occur within 7 days of one another are treated as part of the same reablement ‘episode’, creating a cluster of reablement records. Among the constituent records, the earliest start date and latest end date are used to define the episode duration
• hospital discharge dates which occur up to 7 days prior or up to 3 days after the reablement start date are linked to form a discharge-to-reablement episode
• discharge-to-reablement episodes are excluded if the individual had an active long-term residential or nursing service on the hospital admission date

Part 1 - numerator

The number of people aged 65 and over who were discharged from hospital into reablement and who remained in the community in the 12 weeks following discharge. For the purposes of this metric, people are counted as remaining in the community if in the 12 weeks following their discharge date:

• they were not admitted to local authority arranged or provided long-term residential or nursing care
• they were not readmitted to hospital as an emergency (unplanned) admission
• they did not die over these 12 weeks

This metric is designed to use ONS mortality records to identify whether an individual died within the 12 weeks following discharge. While access and linkage to ONS mortality records is being developed, the date of death field in CLD is used in the interim.

ASCOF 2E

The proportion of people who receive long-term support who live in their home or with family. This metric has been expanded into 2 parts:

• part 1: clients with a learning disability aged 18 to 64
• part 2: all clients disaggregated by ages 18 to 64 (2a) and 65 and over (2b)

ASCOF 2E cohort

The cohort includes people who have received a local authority organised or provided long-term support service during the statistical reporting period. Part 1 is restricted to people aged 18 to 64 with a primary support reason of ‘Learning disability support’. Part 2 includes everyone aged 18 and over with any primary support reason.

The metric describes the proportion who live in their home or with family. This is inferred from information in 3 data fields:

• accommodation status
• service type
• service component

Appendices 4 and 5 outline how these fields are used to identify whether someone is living in their home or with family.

Age is calculated based on the end date of their latest service during the reporting period, or on the reporting period end date if their service is still open.

ASCOF 3D

The proportion of people using social care who receive self-directed support and those receiving direct payments. This metric consists of:

• part 1a: clients receiving self-directed support (at year end)
• part 2a: clients receiving direct payments (at year end)

Please note, following our review of the July 2025 CLD submissions, the national number of unpaid carers recorded in CLD for 2024 to 2025 remains significantly below the figure reported through SALT 2023 to 2024. To avoid misinterpretation, this year’s ASCOF report excludes metric 3D parts 1b and 2b for unpaid carers.

ASCOF 3D cohort - client-based metrics (parts 1a and 2a)

Parts 1a and 2a of the metric consider people aged between 18 or over who are receiving long-term support on the last day of the statistical reporting period, and the details of that service. If a person is receiving more than one long-term service on that day, just one of the services is selected by applying the hierarchy in appendix 3.

The denominators of these metrics count the number of clients who are receiving long-term community support as their highest-ranked service.

The numerator of part 1a is the count of those people from the subset above whose delivery mechanism is either ‘Direct payment’ or ‘CASSR managed personal budget’, or they have a service component of ‘Direct payment’.

The numerator of part 2a counts only those whose delivery mechanism or service component indicates a ‘Direct payment’.

All counts are disaggregated by age (18 to 64 and 65 and over) based on the age at the end of the reporting period. Those with an unknown age are included in total counts. 

Appendix 1: ASCOF 2A outcomes

Table 2 below outlines which outcomes after ST-Max are considered as successful reablement, such as when no further support is required, and shows their inclusion in the numerator or denominator for metric 2A. NFA means ‘no further action’.

Table 2: potential outcomes following ST-Max and their inclusion in metric 2A

Final outcome	Included in numerator	Included in denominator
Long-term support: nursing care	No	Yes
Long-term support: residential care	No	Yes
Long-term support: community	No	Yes
Long-term support: prison	No	Yes
Short-term support: ongoing low level	Yes	Yes
Short-term support: other short term	Yes	Yes
Short-term support: residential or nursing care	No	Yes
NFA - information and advice or signposting only	Yes	Yes
Service ended as planned	Yes	Yes
NFA - moved to another local authority	Yes	Yes
NFA - other	Yes	Yes
NFA - no services offered: other reason	Yes	Yes
NFA - support ended: other reason	Yes	Yes
NFA - deceased	No	No
NFA - 100% NHS-funded care	No	No
NFA - self-funded client (including 12 week disregard)	No	No
NFA - support declined	No	No
Admitted to hospital	No	No
Progress to end of life care (see note)	No	No
No change in package (see note)	No	No
Progress to assessment (see note)	No	No
Progress to financial assessment (see note)	No	No
Progress to re-assessment or unplanned review (see note)	No	No
Progress to reablement or ST-Max (see note)	No	No
Progress to support planning or services (see note)	No	No
Provision of service (see note)	No	No

Note: these intermediate outcomes are considered ‘inconclusive’ as it cannot be determined whether further long-term support was required. For this reason, these event outcomes are excluded from both the numerator and denominator.

Appendix 2: event outcome hierarchy

The event outcome hierarchy in table 3 below is a list of entries recorded in the event outcome field and their respective rankings. These are applied when processing data for metric 2A.

Table 3: event outcome hierarchy

Event outcome	Rank
Admitted to hospital	1
NFA - moved to another local authority	2
NFA - 100% NHS funded care	3
NFA - self-funded client (including 12 week disregard)	4
NFA - information and advice or signposting only	5
NFA - support declined	6
NFA - deceased	7
Service ended as planned	8
NFA - support ended: other reason	9
NFA - no services offered: other reason	10
NFA - other	11
Progress to reablement or ST-Max (see note)	12
Progress to assessment (see note)	13
Progress to re-assessment or unplanned review (see note)	14
Progress to financial assessment (see note)	15
Progress to support planning or services (see note)	16
No change in package (see note)	17
Provision of service (see note)	18
Progress to end of life care (see note)	19

Note: this hierarchy matches that outlined in the CLD collection guidance. For the purposes of determining sequels for ASCOF 2A, these intermediate outcomes are considered ‘unable to classify’ as it cannot be determined whether further long-term support was required. For this reason, these event outcomes are deprioritised over other event outcomes when determining the sequels. The CLD collection guidance is in the ‘ASC CLD specification’ section of the AGEM CLD information pages for local authorities.

Appendix 3: service type hierarchy

Table 4 shows a list of entries recorded in the service type field and their respective rankings. These are applied when processing the data for metrics 2A and 3D.

Table 4: service type hierarchy

Service type	Rank
Short-term support: ST-Max	1
Long-term support: nursing care	2
Long-term support: residential care	3
Long-term support: community	4
Long-term support: prison	5
Short-term support: ongoing low level	6
Short-term support: other short term	7

Appendix 4: accommodation status categorisation

Table 5 shows a list of entries recorded in the accommodation status field and whether they are categorised as living at home or with family, or not.

Table 5: accommodation status categorisation

Accommodation status	At home group
Approved premises for offenders released from prison or under probation supervision	Living at home or with family
Shared lives scheme	Living at home or with family
Sheltered housing, extra care housing, other sheltered housing	Living at home or with family
Supported accommodation, supported lodgings, supported group home	Living at home or with family
Mobile accommodation for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities	Living at home or with family
Owner occupier or shared ownership scheme	Living at home or with family
Settled mainstream housing with family, friends	Living at home or with family
Tenant	Living at home or with family
Tenant - private landlord	Living at home or with family
Unknown - presumed at home	Living at home or with family
Prison or young offenders institution, detention centre	Not living at home or with family
Registered care home	Not living at home or with family
Registered nursing home	Not living at home or with family
Acute or long-term healthcare residential facility or hospital	Not living at home or with family
Night shelter, emergency hostel, direct access hostel	Not living at home or with family
Other temporary accommodation	Not living at home or with family
Placed in temporary accommodation by the council (including homelessness resettlement)	Not living at home or with family
Refuge	Not living at home or with family
Rough sleeper, squatting	Not living at home or with family
Staying with family, friends as a short-term guest	Not living at home or with family
Unknown - presumed in community	Not living at home or with family
Unknown	Unknown

Appendix 5: service information mapping to accommodation status

This mapping is used for metric 3D when a person’s accommodation status is unknown, to deduce whether they are living at home or with family or not. If a person is in receipt of multiple services, then a hierarchy is applied in the order they are listed in table 6 below.

Table 6: a list of service types and service components and how they relate to a person’s accommodation status

Service type	Service component	Mapped accommodation status	Living at home or with family
Long-term support: nursing care	Any	Registered nursing home	No
Long-term support: residential care	Any	Registered care home	No
Any	Extra care housing	Sheltered housing, extra care housing or other sheltered housing	Yes
Any	Shared lives	Shared lives scheme	Yes
Any	Community supported living	Supported accommodation, supported lodgings, supported home group	Yes
Long-term support: community	Home support or domiciliary care	Unknown: presumed at home	Yes
Long-term support: community	(any service component except those listed above)	Unknown: presumed in community	No
Long-term support: prison	(any service component)	Prison, young offenders institution or detention centre	No