Adult Social Care migration to DHSC (excluding ASC CLD)

The data will be used to support the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) statutory duty to publish Adult Social Care data. Responsibility for the publication of this data has transferred from NHS England (NHSE) to DHSC.

The government asked NHS Digital (now part of NHS England) to collect information about adult social care services, starting with instructions given in 2019. When NHS Digital’s responsibilities moved to NHS England in February 2023, those instructions stayed in place and now apply directly to NHS England.

By law, NHS England must collect this data, and organisations involved in adult social care are required to provide it in a specific format and timeframe.

Normally, NHS England would publish adult social care statistics, which can be found on the Adult Social Care Data Hub. However, with a 2025 amendment to those directions the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has asked NHS England not to publish it, because DHSC will now take over the job of validating the data and releasing official statistics. NHS England will still collect and share the data with DHSC under its directions, which needs it to carry out its role in overseeing health and social care services in England.

Going forward, all nine publications listed there have now been transferred to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

DHSC will use this data to publish key information that supports official statistics on adult social care. This includes insights into service activity, user experience, and outcomes — helping inform policy, planning, and public understanding of adult social care in England.

The purpose of the publicly published statistics is to allow the public, researchers, and policymakers to:

• Support research: Allow researchers to analyse survey data to research the performance of Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs). Requests for this data is made available via NHS England’s Data Access Request Service.

• Promote accountability: Help service users and the public hold CASSRs and the Government accountable for adult social care services.

• Contribute to key publications: Feed into the Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Assured Official Statistics publication, alongside data from the Client-Level Adult Social Care Data collection.

• Understand how adult social care services are delivered and experienced.

Local Authorities will transfer anonymised and aggregated data to NHS England. Data is submitted by local authorities to NHSE using individual pro-formas for each data collection via the Secure Data Collection Service (SDCS Classic).

NHS England will provide from SDCS Classic the relevant records from the Adult Social Care Finance Return (ASC-FR), Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA), Safeguarding Adults Collection (SAC), Registered Blind and Partially Sighted (Registered Blind), Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983 (Guardianship), Adult Social Care Survey (ASCS) and Survey of Adult Carers England (SACE) datasets to DHSC. The Data will be aggregated/ anonymised, and individuals cannot be reidentified through linkage with other data in the possession of the recipient.

The Data will not be transferred to any other location.

Data will be stored on both the NHS England tech stack and the Data Access Cloud (DAC) an internal asset owned and managed solely by DHSC. As an interim arrangement, Arden & GEM analysts (part of NHS England) process, validate, and analyse the data within the NHS England tech stack platform with the intention to process on DHSC’s DAC system once the data sharing agreement is approved and technical migration processes are completed.

The only exception to this process is the activity and finance report, in which Arden & GEM are not involved. In that case, the data is transferred directly to DHSC, who are solely responsible for its processing and publication.

The Data will be accessed onsite at the premises of DHSC, NHS England and via remote access.

The Controller(s) must confirm and provide evidence upon audit by NHS England that access via any remote device complies with the data security obligations within this DSA and the Data Sharing Framework Contract.

For remote access:

Remote access will only be from secure locations situated within the territory of use (as further restricted elsewhere within the DSA if so done) stated within this DSA;

Access controls granting users the minimum level of access required are in place;

Remote access is only via secure connections (e.g., VPNs or secure protocols) to protect data;

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for remote access;

Device security, including up-to-date software and operating systems, antivirus software, and enabled firewalls are utilised for the remote access;

All remote access is undertaken within the scope of the organisation’s DSPT (or other security arrangements as per this DSA) and complies with the organisation’s remote access policy.

The above applies in addition to any condition set out elsewhere within the DSA (e.g. who may carry out processing, and for what purpose).

The Data will not be linked with any other data.

The expected outputs will be:

• Publications will be published on DHSC's website (URL in development). DHSC will continue to redirect people from the Adult social care data hub -

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-tools-and-services/data-services/adult-social-care-data-hub

The outputs will not contain NHS England Data and will only contain aggregated information with small numbers suppressed as appropriate in line with the relevant disclosure rules for the dataset(s) from which the information was derived.

Outputs deriving from the Adult Social Care Datasets:

• Adults Social Care Finance Return.

Website publication of annual expenditure by Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) on services for adults aged 18 and over, by service provision and primary support reason. Information on a number of accounting categories is also included such as income from the NHS, grants provided to voluntary organisations and gross and net expenditure. It is also used for the calculation of unit costs – the cost of adult social services per person per week.

• Safeguarding Adults Collection (SAC)

Website publication provides an annual report which presents aggregated information about adults at risk for whom there were active safeguarding concerns or enquiries which were opened and/or closed during the reporting period.

• Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983

Website publication provides biennial report used to monitor the number of patients who receive care in the community where it cannot be provided without the use of compulsory powers.

• Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey, England (ASCS)

Website publication of an annual report used to inform service development and help local authorities and the Adult Social Care sector monitor the effectiveness of services e.g. to promote quality of life or enable choice for service users. This is the only regular national source of information on service user experience and outcomes.

• Personal Social Services Survey of Adult Carers in England (SACE)

Website publication of biennial report used to assess and report the extent to which unpaid carers can balance their life and other responsibilities with their role as carer. It provides key inputs for the ASC Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) which includes key measures for quality of life.

• Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA)

Website publication of an annual report which presents aggregated information about the number of DPAs and the associated value of the DPAs along with details of new requests and detail on recovered DPAs.

• Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)

Website publication provides an annual report which presents aggregated information about the number of DoLS applications received, completed and assessed, by urgency and CQC service type.

• Registered Blind and Partially Sighted Collection

Website publication provides a triennial report providing aggregated information for those people registered with a local authority detailing the number of overall registrations, by age band and additional disability, and the number of new registrations within the year, again by age band and additional disability.

These metrics are fundamental to monitoring Adult Social Care services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

Benefits deriving from the eight Adult Social Care Datasets published on DHSC website:

• Adults Social Care Activity & Finance Return

These metrics are fundamental to monitoring Adult Social Care services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services. This is combined with (not linked to) data from Adults Social Care Client Level Data to produce the annual Adults Social Care Activity and Finance Return.

• Safeguarding Adults Collection (SAC)

These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983

Allows the Government to inform policy monitoring; CASSRs to measure / monitor local performance, to benchmark against other councils, facilitate service deployment, planning and improvement, local reporting and accountability; the National Audit Office to produce reports and briefings which typically relate to demonstrating value for money has been achieved. These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)

Enables that, where care may amount to a "deprivation of liberty", the arrangements are independently assessed to ensure they are in the best interests of the individual concerned. These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey, England (ASCS)

Informs CQC local authority (LA) assessments, LA performance monitoring, and internal policy development as well as the Quality of Life (QoL) metrics used in the ASC Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) publication. These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Personal Social Services Survey of Adult Carers in England (SACE)

These metrics effectively populate a number of different LA assessments, evidence key policy in the department, and provide data for LA’s to compare their performance with. These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA)

These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

• Registered Blind and Partially Sighted Collection

These metrics are fundamental to monitoring ASC services and understanding how well they are delivering long-term impact. They provide service quality insight, provide accountability, ensure policy decisions are based on current and complete information and increases service users' trust in public services.

Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.