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Results of the ad hoc self-funders survey, July 2001
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Last modified date:9 February 2007
The Health and Social Services Act, 2001 makes care provided by registered nurses in nursing homes a NHS responsibility. From 1 October 2001, the Government is introducing "free nursing care" (FNC) to those who currently fund all their care in nursing homes, either by paying nursing home fees directly from their own resources or through contributions to the Local Authority which cover all the fees - these are sometimes known as self funders. From 1 October, the NHS will need to manage the budget.
In order to implement this policy for funding the care of self funders, a brief survey was conducted between 15 June and 27 July 2001 to determine the number of self funders in private general and mental nursing homes in England. The survey was conducted via 97 Registration and Inspection Units in Health Authorities.
Copies of the questionnaires and covering letters (for Health Authorities and individual nursing homes) are available here
The main purpose of the survey was to establish the number and location of those funding the entire costs of their own care to help inform the allocation process. A secondary aim of some of the questions (those on GP registration and on those in nursing homes with preserved rights to increased rates of income support in payment) was to alert Health Authorities/Primary Care Trusts to important aspects of implementation of the policy.
Results of the survey
All 97 Health Authorities completed the survey. However, a number were unable to obtain a complete response from all of the homes within their area. In these cases, survey information was grossed up for non-response on a pro-rata basis.
The survey showed that :
- Excluding those people receiving DSS benefits at a preserved rights rate, there are an estimated 42,700 self funders in private nursing homes in England. There is some variation in this number by Health authority.
- There were an estimated 11,600 people occupying beds and receiving benefits at a preserved rights rate. This number is thought to be an under-estimate.
Two Excel 97 spreadsheets from the survey are available giving full information from the survey for each Health Authority. These are:
Internet self fund unweighted.xls - this file has a separate worksheet for each of the 6 questions from the survey. It shows the raw data supplied by Health Authorities and highlights were a partial response was received.
Internet self fund weighted.xls - this file has a separate worksheet for each of the 6 questions from the survey. It shows grossed up data supplied by Health Authorities (grossed up for non-response). There is also an additional worksheet comparing information provided by Health Authorities on the number of people occupying beds in nursing homes and receiving income support at a preserved rights rate, together with information from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for December 2000 (note: information from DWP is available at the Local Authority level and has been estimated at the Health Authority level to make comparisons).
There is also a map, which shows the percentage of occupied beds in private nursing homes that are occupied by self funders (as identified in 2001 Self Funders Survey):
Points to note
When examining the results of the survey, a number of points should be borne in mind:
- The information provided by Health Authorities has been validated as far as possible by comparing with other sources of information, for example the number of Local Authority Supported residents. Despite validation, some of the data may have data quality issues.
- There is some concern regarding questions 5 and 6 of the survey. Some Health Authorities may have been unable to distinguish between the categories of the number of people occuping beds in nursing homes and paying the full cost - 'directly to the home', 'via the LA' or 'via a third party'. It is probably best to look at the total from question 5 rather than the individual categories.
- The number of people receiving Income Support at a preserved rights rate is low when compared with similar information from the Department for Work and Pensions. It is possible that individual nursing homes do not know this number and may have excluded it from questions 5 and 6.
- Allocations to Health Authorities have been increased to £100m for 2001/02 to take account of the increased number of self funders revealed by the survey and this includes £6m towards continence supplies for self funders, again based on the survey results.
Further information
Contact for data queries:
Kate Anderson
Statistics Division 3B
Department of Health
Room 451C, Skipton House
80 London Road
London SE1 6LH
Telephone number: 020 7972 5582
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