New Data Shows Scale and Shifting Demand in England’s Adult Social Care System
The latest quarterly figures from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) provide a detailed snapshot of adult social care activity in England, highlighting sustained demand for services across community, residential and nursing settings.
The Adult Social Care Client Level Data (CLD) – quarterly update to December 2025 forms part of a developing national dataset designed to give deeper insight into how individuals interact with local authority-funded care services.
The data shows that, as of late 2025, approximately 683,000 people were receiving long-term adult social care support arranged or provided by local authorities in England.
The majority of this support continues to be delivered in people’s own homes or community settings, accounting for around 490,000 individuals. However, care homes remain a critical part of the system:
• 138,000 people were supported in residential care homes
• 55,000 people were receiving care in nursing homes
For providers across the residential and nursing care sector, these figures underline the ongoing importance of bed-based care within the wider care ecosystem, particularly for individuals with more complex or higher acuity needs.
Alongside long-term support figures, the report highlights continued pressure on front-end services. Between October 2024 and September 2025, around 609,000 people received an adult social care assessment without having accessed long-term support in the previous year.
This indicates a substantial flow of new individuals entering the system, reinforcing concerns about rising demand linked to demographic change, increased life expectancy, and more complex health conditions.
The Client Level Data collection represents a significant shift in how adult social care activity is measured. Unlike previous aggregate returns, CLD captures individual-level data on assessments, care provision and outcomes, offering a more granular understanding of service use.
The dataset covers adults supported by local authorities under the Care Act 2014, including both those receiving ongoing care and those who contact services for advice, assessment or short-term support.
For the care sector, this improved visibility is expected to support better planning, commissioning and policy development over time.
While community-based care continues to dominate in volume terms, the data reinforces the essential role of residential and nursing care settings in supporting tens of thousands of people nationwide.
At the same time, the steady inflow of new assessments suggests that demand for all forms of care—including complex nursing provision—may continue to rise.
For operators, workforce planners and commissioners, the emerging CLD dataset offers an increasingly important evidence base to understand:
• Changing patterns of need
• The balance between community and bed-based care
• Future pressures on capacity and staffing
DHSC has emphasised that the CLD publication is still classified as an “official statistic in development”, with ongoing improvements to data quality, coverage and consistency expected in future releases.
Quarterly updates are now scheduled on a regular cycle, signalling a move towards more timely and responsive reporting across the adult social care sector.
