The Care Quality Commission found care homes in England are consolidating while home care fragments, and Independent Care Group Honorary President Mike Padgham blames fees that do not cover the cost of care.
In England, whether a care home resident pays the full fee or gets help from their council depends on their savings and other capital: above £23,250 they pay in full, and below it the council may help after a means test.
The first Fair Pay Agreement for adult social care in England has £500 million for 2028/29, but whether that money reaches care workers depends on council fees that already fall short in home care.
A record 523,081 people in England now have a formal dementia diagnosis, NHS England figures show, and Alzheimer's Society argues the next test should be how long people wait for one.
The Care Association Alliance wants young people not in education, employment or training brought into adult social care in England, but its paper also reports that more than half of care workers under 20 leave within a year.
Care worker turnover falls from 34.3% to 15.3% where employers in England combine pay, hours, training, qualifications and full-time work, Skills for Care says, but its own figures show that package is far from common.
MHA chief executive Sam Monaghan and UNISON General Secretary Andrea Egan want care workers' wait for settlement to stay at five years, warning that the proposed 15 years risks pushing providers back to costly agency staff.
Minister for Social Care and Mental Health Alison McGovern says the government will 'prepare the ground now' for a National Care Service for England with free personal care, rather than wait for Baroness Casey's review next summer, but no cost or start date has been set out.
Care workers at Sunderland Care and Support have voted overwhelmingly for strike action in an indicative ballot, and GMB is moving to a formal ballot and widening the fight to other council staff.
What’s ahead: consultations, decisions, reports and events.
Commissioning and markets · Market shape
UK properties Welltower owns, by the operator that runs them, 30 June 2026 · 30 June 2026
Note: Welltower's own count at 30 June 2026: UK-wide and all property types, including leased homes, so not comparable with care home beds in England. Welltower owns the buildings; the operators run the homes. 54 of its 795 UK properties are run by other operators.
Source: Welltower, second-quarter 2026 supplement (PDF) (opens in a new tab) Published 23 October 2026
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Prime Minister Andy Burnham proposes a free National Care Service for England, paid for by changing the state pension triple lock.
The Autumn Budget was delivered on 28 October 2026; what it means for the fees councils in England pay for care is not yet clear.
Baroness Casey's Independent Commission on Adult Social Care in England is due to make its recommendations by summer 2027, and its public panel of around 125 people meets from November 2026 to April 2027.
The Fair Pay Agreement, England's planned answer to low pay for adult social care workers, is at the evidence stage, and no pay rate has been set.
A record 523,081 people in England had a formal dementia diagnosis by September 2026, NHS England figures show.
Carers UK says 1.1 million people across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland left work in the last two years to provide unpaid care.
A view of UK social care through our charts.
Commissioning and markets · Market shape
Care home beds in England run by the ten largest operators · October 2026
Note: Counted under the operator that runs each home; a home registered twice is counted once. Do not add the bars up across groups: Welltower owns the buildings of many homes run by Care UK, Barchester and Avery, which count under those operators. The Welltower bar is the homes CQC registers under its Welltower brand: HC-One (7,474 beds; Welltower is reported to own HC-One), Ideal Carehomes and Welltower's own operating companies.
Source: CQC register of care services, Baton calculation (opens in a new tab) Published 23 October 2026
Regulation and quality · Ratings
Share of rated care homes rated good or outstanding, by region · October 2026
Note: CQC's current overall rating, which for some homes is several years old.
Source: CQC register of care services, Baton calculation (opens in a new tab) Published 21 October 2026
Commissioning and markets · Care home places
Share of care home beds in England, by who runs the home · October 2026
Note: Councils include the companies they own, as far as we have identified them (known data issue DI-003). A home registered twice is counted once.
Source: CQC register of care services, Baton calculation (opens in a new tab) Published 21 October 2026
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