In 2022, there were 408,371 people living in care homes in the United Kingdom. The population was higher in England than in any other part of the UK. In 2022, over 360 thousand people were living in care homes in England.

An estimation of the size of the self-funding population in care homes in England, using an experimental method. Weighted annual data broken down by geographic variables and care home characteristics.

In 2022, residential care in the United Kingdom was most expensive in the South East, Scotland, and London with weekly fees of over 800 British pounds. Care homes vary in the type of services they offer to elderly people. Residential care homes, for instance, are suitable for adults who are mostly independent but could use some assistance in day to day living such as dressing, washing, doing laundry or taking medicine. Nursing homes, on the other hand, offer 24-hour medical supervision. An ageing population increases the importance of retirement living properties and services that suit the needs of residents.

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents aged 65 years and over living in a care home in England and Wales. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

In 2022, care homes across the United Kingdom employed nearly 752 thousand people. Most of the workforce was found in England where care homes employed 650 thousand people. This workforce looks after the over 400 thousand people living in care homes in the UK.

The UK has an ageing population – for the Residential Nursing Care industry, this is an opportunity for growth with demand for more beds expanding. Homes have upped their average weekly fees, contributing to revenue. High inflation over the two years through 2023-24 has raised fees further. However, state involvement has limited growth, which has kept care fees artificially low for many nursing home residents. Residential nursing care revenue is anticipated to remain stable at £9.3 billion over the five years through 2024-25, including revenue growth of 3% in 2024-25. Weak government funding and wage cost pressures caused by the rising National Living Wage (which will increase to £12.21 in April 2025) have constrained profitability. Labour supply shortages caused by high turnover rates have been of particular concern. According to Skills For Care, the job vacancy rate in 2023-24 in the adult care sector was 8.3%, way above the average rate in the UK economy. That being said, the vacancy rate is declining thanks mainly to a government-driven recruitment drive to attract overseas workers, which has been helped by reducing visa requirements. Rising real household disposable income had supported more self-funded residents, aiding residential nursing care. However, data from the ONS revealed the percentage of self-funded residents fell from 36.7% in 2019-20 to 34.9% over the year through February 2022. In the year through February 2023, this has risen again to 37% of the 372,035 care home residents. Families are still struggling with the rising cost of living, reducing the number of people able to afford private care home costs, which has somewhat constrained revenue growth. Over the five years through 2029-30, residential and nursing care revenue is estimated to expand at a compound annual rate of 4.1% to £11.4 billion. Robust demand from an ageing population will support industry growth. However, plans for adult social care reforms are to be released in two stages (the first in 2026 and the second in 2028), which has caused greater uncertainty for the sector's future. Staff shortage concerns will continue to plague nursing care.

From 2012 to 2023, the average number of residents in care homes operated by HC-One decreased in the UK. In 2023, HC-One cared for over 7,000 residents, whereas it cared for 10 thousand from 2012 to 2014. Although the number of residents have decreased, HC-One remains one of the leading care home operators in the UK.

Provisional counts of the number of care home resident deaths registered in England and Wales, by region, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), in the latest weeks for which data are available.

The average number of years care home residents aged 65 years and over are expected to live beyond their current age in England and Wales. Classified as Experimental Statistics.

In 2022/23, the occupancy rate of care homes in the United Kingdom (UK) rose to 86.4 percent, which is approaching pre-pandemic occupancy levels of 87-89 percent. Following the coronavirus outbreak, the care home occupancy rate in the UK fell to an average of 79.4 percent. These were the lowest occupancy rates recorded since 2006 and reflect the consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Number of council-supported permanent admissions of younger adults (aged 18-64) to residential and nursing care divided by the size of the younger adult population (aged 18-64) in the area multiplied by 100,000. People counted as a permanent admission include: Residents where the local authority makes any contribution to the costs of care, no matter how trivial the amount and irrespective of how the balance of these costs are metSupported residents in: Local authority-staffed care homes for residential careIndependent sector care homes for residential careRegistered care homes for nursing careResidential or nursing care which is of a permanent nature and where the intention is that the spell of care should not be ended by a set date. For people classified as permanent residents, the care home would be regarded as their normal place of residence. Where a person who is normally resident in a care home is temporarily absent at 31 March (e.g. through temporary hospitalisation) and the local authority is still providing financial support for that placement, the person should be included in the numerator. Trial periods in residential or nursing care homes where the intention is that the stay will become permanent should be counted as permanent. Whether a resident or admission is counted as permanent or temporary depends on the intention of the placement at the time of admission. The transition from ASC-CAR to SALT resulted in a change to which admissions were captured by this measure, and a change to the measure definition. 12-week disregards and full cost clients are now included, whereas previously they were excluded from the measure. Furthermore, whilst ASC-CAR recorded the number of people who were admitted to residential or nursing care during the year, the relevant SALT tables record the number of people for whom residential/nursing care was planned as a sequel to a request for support, a review, or short-term support to maximise independence Only covers people receiving partly or wholly supported care from their Local Authority and not wholly private, self-funded care. Data source: SALT.Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.

In 2021, there were 15,200 residential adult social care homes in England, these establishments provide care and support for older and disabled people. That year, there were 11,900 non-residential adult care homes in England. Over the provided time interval the number of residential care homes decreased, while the number of non-residential care homes has increased since 2009.

As a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), there were over 15 thousand deaths in care homes in England and Wales between April 10 and April 24, 2020.

Data collection of interviews and observations resulting from case study research in residential care homes in Canada, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This collection consist of transcriptions of interviews conducted at 11 research sites with managers, residents, staff, relatives, volunteers and visiting staff such as GPs or activities workers. Interviews were usually conducted in pairs, one 'home' and one 'foreign' researcher working together. Field notes were taken by researchers during observations of activities and practices within the selected care homes when researchers were 'on site' at different times of the day. The aim was to identify promising practices as well as to describe daily routines at different times: morning, afternoon and evening shifts. Observations also include records of conversations.

Active, healthy ageing is not often regarded as relevant to the residents of care homes and the aim of health and social care policies is to keep people out of care homes so as to remain active in their own homes. However, care homes remain an important element of care systems and have the potential to promote healthy active ageing. Based on a broad view of health that includes mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects, this project aims to develop new definitions of active, healthy ageing which include men and women who live in care homes and will identify strategies that enable residents to live more fulfilling lives. It will also identify strategies that promote the health of the labour force in care homes. We will explore the potential of such strategies to save resources by reducing the amount of medical and other care required as well as levels of staff sickness. This international project will use comparative case studies led by experienced national teams that will produce valuable data on the conditions that are the most promising in promoting healthy active ageing for residents and staff in specific care facilities in Canada, the UK, Sweden and Norway.

Care homes including, name, number of rooms by type (nursing, nursing EMI, residential, residential EMI) address and location.

For more information about Care Homes see: https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/v2/residents/health-and-social-care/residential-and-nursing-care-page

Provisional counts of deaths in care homes caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) by local authority. Published by the Office for National Statistics and Care Quality Commission.

Most care homes across the United Kingdom were funded by local authorities or by private pay. In 2023, 46 percent of care homes were funded by private-paying residents, while 43 percent of care homes derived their income from local authorities. On the other hand, just nine percent of care homes in the UK were funded by the NHS in 2023. This share of NHS funded care homes has been gradually decreasing.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The objectives of the study were:
to establish whether self-funded people who are admitted to residential care differ significantly in terms of financial assets and informal support from elderly people in private households;
to establish the extent to which self-financed residents are admitted at levels of dependency that might have been maintained in the community;
to investigate the process of admission and whether those people with lower levels of dependency are admitted through choice or lack of access to appropriate alternatives;
to investigate factors associated with the choice of home;
identify the level of receipt of non-means tested benefits; and
to estimate expected length of stay of self-funded residents.


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The dataset contains data from a survey of care home managers, and from a survey of relatives or other contacts of residents of care homes, where these were available. The home managers provided information about the home on the Home Manager Questionnaire and about recently-admitted residents on the Resident Questionnaire. The relatives/other contacts provided information about the same residents on the Family/Friend Questionnaire. The dataset consists of two SPSS data files, relating to the Home Manager Questionnaire and to the Resident and Family/Friend questionnaires. Each data file contains a complete set of variables from the respective questionnaires, with the exception of variables identifying the address of individual residents, together with derived variables. In particular, where no relative or other contact could be identified, home managers were asked, where possible, to supply additional information on the resident’s financial circumstances, corresponding to the information on the Family/Friend Questionnaire. Composite derived variables were computed using the data from the Family/Friend Questionnaire, where available, or from the data supplied by the home managers.

Standard measures of resident dependency were computed from the resident-level data: the Barthel Index of Activities of Daily Living (Royal College of Physicians and British Geriatrics Society, Standardised Assessment Scales for Elderly People, Royal College of Physicians of London, London, 1992); and the Minimum Data Set Cognitive Performance Scale (Morris, J.N., Fries, B.E., Mehr, D.R., Hawes, C., Phillips, C., Mor, V. and Lipsitz, L.A., MDS Cognitive Performance Scale, Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 1994, 49(4), M174-M182).

The measure of social care outcome for older people (SCOOP) developed by Netten and her colleagues was computed from the Family/Friend Questionnaire data (Netten, A., Ryan, M., Smith, P., Skatun, D., Healey, A., Knapp, M. and Wykes, T., The Development of a Measure of Social Care Outcome for Older People, PSSRU Discussion Paper No. 1690/2, Personal Social Services Research Unit, 2002). (Note that the final version of the measure is the Older People's Utility Scale for Social Care (OPUS).)

Wenger's Support Network Typology (Wenger, G.C., Help in Old Age – Facing up to Change: A Longitudinal Network Study, Institute of Human Ageing, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1992) was used to classify the informal care network of residents using Wenger and Scott's Support Network Type Algorithm version 1.2 ((c) G. Clare Wenger and Anne Scott 1994, 1996, Centre for Social Policy Research and Development, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK, LL57 2DG).