The percentage of respondents to the Adult Social Care Survey (service users) who responded to the question "Thinking about how much contact you've had with people you like, which of the following statements best describes your social situation?" with the answer "I have as much social contact as I want with people I like".
This measure applies to those people in receipt, at the point that data are extracted, of long-term support services funded or managed by social services following a full assessment of need.
Rationale
There is clear link between loneliness and poor mental and physical health. A key element of the Government's vision for social care is to tackle loneliness and social isolation, supporting people to remain connected to their communities and to develop and maintain connections to their friends and family. This measure will draw on self-reported levels of social contact as an indicator of social isolation for both users of social care and carers.
Definition of numerator
The number of respondents to the Adult Social Care Survey (service users) who responded to the question "Thinking about how much contact you've had with people you like, which of the following statements best describes your social situation?" with the answer "I have as much social contact as I want with people I like".
Definition of denominator
The number of people responding to the question "Thinking about how much contact you've had with people that you like" in the Adult Social Care Survey (service users).
Caveats
Note: Isles of Scilly and City of London are exempt from the survey as the number of service users within their area who met the survey eligibility criteria are generally too small to guarantee statistically robust results. However, City of London has submitted data in some years, including in the 2021 to 2022 dataset, when it had sufficient numbers for statistically robust reporting.
Lewisham Council did not submit data for 2021 to 2022 due to a change in staffing and lack of awareness of the ASCS. Hackney Council was unable to submit ASCS data for 2021 to 2022 due to a serious cyber attack. No data was available for Hackney for 2022 to 2023. To maintain comparability with previous years, NHS Digital used 2019 to 2020 data from Hackney in the England and regional aggregated totals. Further details are available in the Adult Social Care Activity and Finance data quality report.
Covid-19 has impacted adult social care data collections, processing, and quality assurance since March 2020. The 2020 to 2021 Adult Social Care survey was voluntary, and only 18 councils participated. Therefore, this indicator was not updated for that year in the Profile.
Kent and Wokingham councils did not conduct a survey in 2019 to 2020. Trafford Council's 2019 to 2020 data was incomplete and only reflects service users with learning disabilities. As the responses are not from a fully representative subset, caution is advised when reviewing this data. Several other councils also had sample sizes under 100 for this question in 2019 to 2020, and these are flagged with a 'value note' in the tool.
Further data quality details are provided in the annual survey reports: Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey.
Data are unavailable for the Isles of Scilly for all years and for the City of London in 2019 to 2020, 2017 to 2018, 2015 to 2016, 2013 to 2014, 2012 to 2013, and 2010 to 2011. Slough Council did not conduct the survey in 2012 to 2013, and Richmond Council did not conduct it in 2010 to 2011. The age 65+ version of this indicator is only displayed from 2014 to 2015 onwards.
Percentages are rounded to one decimal place and numbers to the nearest five. Different base values (sample sizes) for each group mean some figures may be more uncertain than others. Group characteristics, such as age, may also affect figures. For example, the age profile of the White ethnic group may differ from others, impacting outcome values in ethnicity breakdowns.
There were several changes to national adult social care data collections in the 2014 to 2015 reporting year. The main change was replacing the Referrals, Assessments and Packages of Care (RAP) return with the Short and Long Term services (SALT) collection, altering the survey's target population. Key changes include:
- Exclusion of users whose only services are equipment, professional support, or short-term residential care.
- Inclusion of ‘Full cost clients’ who pay fully for services but are assessed and supported by the local authority.
These changes may affect comparability with data from previous years and between local authorities, though they may also improve consistency across councils.
Social Isolation: percentage of adult social care users who have as much social contact as they would like - WMCA