Percentage of end of life spent at home or in a community setting
Financial years ending 31 March 2013 to 2022

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides information on the percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting in the last six months of life. Data are presented by financial years ending 31 March 2013 to 2022, by NHS Board, Health and Social Care Partnership of residence and for Scotland. The figures presented for financial year 2021/22 are provisional.

Main points

• In 2021/22, there were 58,697 deaths in Scotland, including falls (but excluding people who died from other external causes). For these individuals, 89.8% of their last six months of life was spent either at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 10.2% spent in hospital. This is equivalent to an average of 19 days in hospital in the six months prior to death, an increase of one day from 2020/21.

Percentage of last six months of life spent at home or in a community setting; 2012/13 - 2021/22 ^p,1

This is a bar chart showing the percentage of end of life spent at home or in a community setting from 2012/13 to 2021/22. The percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting has increased gradually from 86.5% in 2012/13 to 89.8% in 2021/22. The percentage of time spent in the hospital setting continues to show a gradual decrease from 13.5% in 2012/13 to 10.2% in 2021/22. In 2021/22, 89.8% of the last six months of life was spent either at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 10.2% spent in hospital.

Close

^pFigures for 2021/22 are provisional.

¹Figures in 2020/21 and 2021/22 are likely to have been affected by the impact of COVID-19 on hospital stays.

• The length of hospital stays in 2020/21 and 2021/22 are likely to have been impacted by measures in place at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be an underlying reason for the larger increase in the percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting between 2019/20 and 2020/21, compared to previous years (increasing from 88.3% in 2019/20 to 90.2% in 2020/21). Since then there has been a small reduction to 89.8% in 2021/22.
• For people aged 85 and over in 2021/22, a slightly higher proportion of their last six months of life was spent in the community by women than by men (90.5% and 88.9%, respectively). This is an average of three days more for women.

Background

This Quality Outcome is a measure of the impact of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care.

The percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting towards the end of life provides a high level indication of progress made on the strategic framework for action. This is inferred by measuring the amount of time spent in a hospital during the last six months of life and thus using this information to estimate the time spent at home or in a community setting.

It is estimated that hospital data for Scotland are 99% complete for 2021/22.

Further information

For more information on Palliative and End of Life Care, see the End of Life Care section of our website.

The next release of this publication will be in October 2023.