Authors:

HU Bo, HANCOCK Ruth, WITTENBERG Raphael

Publisher:

London School of Economics and Political Science, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre

Publication year:

2020

Pagination:

19

Place of publication:

London

Edition:

7

This paper presents updated projections prepared for the Department of Health and Social Care of demand for long-term care for older people and younger adults in England to 2038 and associated future expenditure. The projections were produced using updated versions of the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre’s (CPEC) aggregate long-term care projections models and the CARESIM microsimulation model developed by Ruth Hancock at the University of East Anglia. The projections cover publicly funded social care for older people and younger adults and for older people only privately funded social care. The key findings of the research are: public expenditure on social services for older people is projected to rise under the current funding system from £8.4 billion in 2018 to £16.5 billion in 2038 at constant 2018 prices and under a set of base case assumptions about trends in the drivers of long-term care demand and in the unit costs of care services; public expenditure on social services for younger adults is projected to rise under the current funding system from £9.6 billion in 2018 to £18.1 billion in 2038 at constant 2018 prices and under a set of base case assumptions about trends in the drivers of long-term care demand and in the unit costs of care services; these base case projections are sensitive to assumptions about future trends in mortality and disability rates and in the real unit costs of care. These findings need to be treated with some caution. They are based on a set of assumptions about future socioeconomic and demographic trends. They relate to current patterns of care and the current funding system and do not take account of any of the funding reforms which have been proposed in recent years. They do not allow for the potential impact of rising expectations or other behavioural changes. Moreover, the findings are based on numbers of service users prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. They do not take account of the, as yet unknown, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess deaths, numbers of service users, or social care expenditure. (Edited publisher abstract)

Subject terms:

public expenditure, adult social care, economic evaluation, service uptake;

Content type:

research

Location(s):

England

Link:

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Series name:

CPEC Working Paper 7

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