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New statistics on deferred payment agreements with local authorities for adult social care have been published today by NHS Digital.

A deferred payment agreement is an arrangement with the local authority that enables people to use the value of their homes to help pay for care home costs. If eligible, the local authority will help to pay a client’s care home bills on their behalf. The client can delay repaying the local authority until they choose to sell their home, or until after their death.

The Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA) Report, England 2019-20¹ provides information on the number and associated monetary value of adult social care deferred payment agreements in England for 2019-20².

It also includes the number and value of DPAs ended, written off and recovered³.

There is also information on the type of DPA, the reason for a DPA being requested and the duration of the agreement⁴.

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and the extra pressures felt by local authorities, collection deadlines for information about DPAs were extended from August to October 2020. A number of local authorities have also advised that it was not possible to quality assure adult social care submissions to the same extent as in previous years, so it is important to consider this when reviewing this year’s data and changes over time.

Read the full report

Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA) Report, England 2019-20

Notes for Editors

1. This is an Experimental Statistics publication – these are official statistics which are published in order to involve users and stakeholders in their development and as a means to build in quality at an early stage. Details of any limitations around this data are provided in the report.
2. This report contains aggregate information submitted by 150 of 151 Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. In previous years there were 152 local authorities, but on 1 April 2019, Bournemouth and Poole merged to form the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) local authority. The inclusion of Christchurch has also reduced the size of the Dorset local authority. Therefore, care should be taken when making comparisons over time for Dorset due to such changes. When considering any changes at local authority level in this publication, these have been done on a like for like basis, excluding these two authorities.
3. The DPA data collection was introduced in 2015, and the first data collected related to DPAs active between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016. The 2015-16 collection was voluntary to submit and 56 local authorities provided data. The 2016-17 collection was mandatory, but a large portion of the return was voluntary. The 2017-18 collection was fully mandatory and did not contain any voluntary elements. In 2016-17 the DPA data was published as part of the Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report. Since 2017-18, the data has been published as a standalone report here.
4. More information on a deferred payment scheme can be found at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/money-work-and-benefits/paying-for-your-own-care-self-funding/