The number of care home residents has fallen by around 8% since before the pandemic, latest estimates suggest.
30 May 2022
More than a fifth of care home beds in England are unfilled, according to new estimates.
The number of care home residents has fallen by around 8% since before the pandemic, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest.
There were an estimated 360,792 care home residents, occupying 77.8% of care home beds, between March 1 2021 to February 28 2022.
Of these, 34.9% (125,954 residents) were paying for some or all of their care, with the remainder funded by the state.
We’ve published new estimations of the size of the self-funding population in care homes in England https://t.co/yQCoHeExVB
There were an estimated 360,792 care home residents in England between 1 Mar 2021 and 28 Feb 2022 – a 7.9% reduction (391,927) from pre #COVID19 (2019-20)
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 30, 2022
Between August 2019 and March 2020, the ONS estimated there were 391,927 care home residents occupying 84.7% of beds.
Of these, 36.7% (143,774) were estimated to be self-funding.
The ONS said: “This is similar to the proportion of self- and state-funded care home residents seen before the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, although the overall care home resident population and occupancy has decreased.”
Bed occupancy decreased by 6.9 percentage points, with 22.2% of beds unfilled in the latest period.
The ONS analysed data from care homes for adults of all ages collected by the Care Quality Commission, covering more than two-thirds (68.6%) of homes.
This is a significant increase from 39.1% of care homes that the last data set covered.
People classed as self-funders were either paying for their own care privately or had their care provided by a charity, while some may also have been receiving some NHS-funded care.
Although the proportion of care home residents self-funding their care was similar to pre-pandemic estimates, the number of self-funders fell by 12.3%.
