Claire Miller, our Data Portal Lead, discusses our work to make sure the projections on the National Social Care Data Portal for Wales meet the needs of the people who use them.
When planning social care, it would be useful to know how many people might need care and support in the future.
One of the ways we’re trying to help with this is by providing projections data on our data portal.
Because the current data was last updated in 2020, we asked ST Analytics to look at whether the projections on the portal are still useful and what we could do to update and improve them.
The method previously used to calculate the projections used prevalence rates broken down by age and gender. These are the proportion of people who have certain health conditions or are unpaid carers. It then took projected population numbers for local areas, up to the 2040s, and applied the prevalence rates to those.
This assumes that the proportion of people who have a condition stays the same over time. It doesn’t account for the possibility that policy decisions or how we diagnose and treat people may have an impact on numbers.
So what did this project want to improve about projections? It aimed to:
- identify what things people in social care wanted projections for
- find new data and research for prevalence rates
- explore new methods for calculating projections.
What information do people want?
As part of this project, ST Analytics spoke to people in social care about what they needed from the projections.
They told us forecasting need for services was a high priority. They used projections data for:
- population needs assessments, which look at what services will be needed in the future
- market stability reports, which look at what provision is likely to be available
- commissioning of services such as placements for children.
Users wanted to be able to turn the data into meaningful estimates of what services will be needed. For example, care homes, nursing beds and direct payments. Understanding future costs was also important.
Projections were needed at a local and regional level to support commissioning decisions. But people also wanted a nationwide approach to support the case for investment in social care provision.
Longer-term projections of 10 to 20 years were seen as key to cover the time needed to recruit and train the workforce.
Many of those asked had problems using projections data on the portal, which may be due to it not loading and the data not meeting their needs. Projections should be updated regularly.
Users also liked the idea of interactive tools where they could look at different scenarios (such as the introduction of different policies) by changing variables to see the impact on projections.
So where could we find the data for the updated projections?
To build more complex data models, we need quality data and research.
However, a review of what is available suggests it’s lacking, particularly Welsh-specific data.
There are three main types of data we could use: cross-sectional surveys, longitudinal research, and administrative data. But Wales lacks a major longitudinal survey, where the same group of people are followed up regularly over a long period. This means projections rely on survey data, administrative data or longitudinal data from other areas of the UK.
National Survey for Wales
One of the main sources for prevalence rates for the 2020 projections was the National Survey for Wales. It involves around 12,000 people each year across Wales, asking them about a wide range of topics.
However, even when three years’ worth of data was combined, the sample sizes were very small when the estimates were broken down by age and gender at a local level.
This means very few people report having some conditions. This means it’s hard to estimate the prevalence with certainty.
Only private homes are selected for the survey, so people living in residential care homes are excluded. This means conditions that are more common among those living in care homes will be underestimated.
Primary care data
For some health conditions, the number of people on GP disease registers may be another source of data. This one does cover those in residential homes.
These may give us a clearer picture of prevalence for some conditions. But it could also overestimate, so the National Survey for Wales may still be more helpful.
For example, a study using administrative data from hospitals and primary care in Wales found very high rates of multimorbidity. Multimorbidity is when people are living with two or more chronic illnesses, which affects 75.6 per cent of 70 to 79-year-olds in Wales.
When updating projections, it’s likely we’ll need to make decisions about what data sources to make use of.
Hospital data
Another risk factor for care home entry is fractures, particularly hip fractures, mainly related to falls.
Hospital in-patient data is available but isn’t usefully broken down by age. Data from the National Hip Fracture Database has also not been published by age for Wales and the next Annual Report won’t be available until September 2025.
Routinely publishing this data could allow for work similar to projections of the future impact of hip fractures on health and social care as carried out in Scotland.
How could we develop the projections?
In talking to users of the projections, we found the questions they’re trying to answer need something more complex than just a future number of individuals with a condition.
Finding out what questions people in social care want help answering could enable us to provide more useful projections. As part of that we could identify the relevant data and research, or the evidence gaps.
To get access to the data we may need, we could work with data owners in health and education to publish data broken down by age and/or local area more regularly. We could also develop a list of further research questions and data needs specifically for social care projections.
Another area to improve is sharing resources relating to projections. This could be a forecasts overview page on the portal and the creation of a guide for projections. Resources could include technical information for specific sources of prevalence and incidence, discussion of the different types of data and links to relevant research and data.
Another option is to explore ways of adding scenario planning tools to the portal. This could allow people to break down projections by different population groups or by looking at the impact of specific policy ideas.
Visit the data portal
Head over to the National Social Care Data Portal for Wales to take a look.
Get in touch
Do you use the projections data on the portal? What would be useful for you in terms of understanding future social care need? How can we improve the projections data we offer?
Email data@socialcare.wales with your thoughts.
