Percentage of end of life spent at home or in a community setting
Financial years ending 31 March 2015 to 2024

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 is presented by financial year from 2014/15 to 2023/24, by NHS Board, Health and Social Care Partnership of residence and for Scotland. The figures presented for financial year 2023/24 are provisional.

Main points

• In 2023/24, there were 58,369 deaths in Scotland. This includes falls but excludes people who died from other external causes. For these individuals, 89.0% of their last six months of life was spent either at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 11.0% spent in hospital. This is equivalent to an average of 20 days spent in hospital in the six months prior to death, similar to the 2022/23 figure.

This is a bar chart showing the percentage of the last six months of life spent at home or in a community setting from 2014/15 to 2023/24. The percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting has increased gradually, with some fluctuation, from 86.6% in 2014/15 to 89.0% in 2023/24. The percentage of time spent in a hospital setting has had a gradual decrease, with some fluctuation, from 13.4% in 2014/15 to 11.0% in 2023/24. In 2023/24, on average 89.0% of the last six months of life was spent either at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 11.0% spent in hospital.

Close

Percentage of last six months of life spent at home or in a community setting; 2014/15 - 2023/24^p,1

^pFigures for 2023/24 are provisional.

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

• Looking at the trend in the percentage of time spent at home or in the community in the last six months of life 2023/24 (89.0%) was slightly lower than 2020/21 (90.2%) and 2021/22 (89.7%) but was higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. On average, an extra four days within the last six months of life was spent at home or in a community setting in 2023/24 compared to 2014/15. The length of hospital stays in 2020/21 and 2021/22 are likely to have been impacted by the measures in place at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In 2023/24, males and females spent on average a similar proportion of their last six months of life in the community. This varies by age group with males (96.1%) aged 0-17 spending a higher proportion of their last six months of life in the community than females (93.5%); an average of five days more for males. Whereas for those aged 85 and over, females (89.8%) spent a slightly higher proportion of their last six months of life in the community than males (88.3%); an average of three days more for females.

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 2023/24. 

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 2025.