How to Find and Read NHS CHC Statistics in 2026

NHS England no longer publishes a quarterly CHC press release. Since 14 May 2026, Continuing Healthcare statistics have appeared as raw Management Information spreadsheets — no headline, no commentary, no explainer. The data is all still there. You just have to find it and read it yourself. This guide shows you how.

For the news story of what changed on 14 May 2026 and why it matters, see our companion piece: NHS quietly discontinued the CHC press release. This post is the practical follow-on — where the figures live now, how to read the XLSX files, and how to use them to support a CHC case. The data shift coincides with a wider NHS reorganisation: see our guide to the 1 April 2026 ICB mergers and the abolition of NHS England for what families with live cases should do.

TL;DR: NHS England discontinued the quarterly CHC press release on 14 May 2026; the data continues as Management Information XLSX on the same NHS England statistics page. To read it: open the most recent quarterly file, find your ICB's row, and compare its eligibility rate and 28-day completion rate against the national figures. The most recent formal release (Q3 2025/26) showed 51,154 adults on CHC at a 17% eligibility rate — down from 31% in 2017/18. Published ICB-level data is something families can cite directly in a CHC dispute.

Where are NHS CHC statistics published now?

NHS CHC statistics continue to publish quarterly as Management Information XLSX files on the same NHS England CHC and FNC statistics page they always have. What ended on 14 May 2026 was the PDF Statistical Release and Report — the NHS-authored headline summary and commentary. The numbers themselves never stopped. This isn't a decision to stop measuring CHC; it's a decision to stop narrating it.

What's discontinued and what continues

The PDF press release, the explanatory report, and the NHS-authored commentary that accompanied each quarter are gone. The raw figures themselves — national totals, eligibility rates, sub-ICB breakdowns, 28-day completion rates, fast-track activity — all continue to publish quarterly as XLSX on the existing statistics page. The data architecture isn't moving; the narrative layer around it has been removed.

A note on the AACC data set

One common misreading is worth flagging before you go looking: the change on 14 May is not a move to the All Age Continuing Care (AACC) data set. AACC is a separate, still-in-development collection that has not yet replaced the existing CHC and FNC quarterly series — so "PDF discontinued" does not mean "moved to AACC". We unpack that distinction in full in our news write-up of the 14 May change; this guide stays focused on finding and reading the data that continues to publish today. If you're new to the system, our guide to how CHC funding is structured is the place to start.

What Does the Final Q3 2025/26 Dataset Show?

The last report in the old format confirms 51,154 adults eligible for NHS CHC at a national rate of 17% (NHS Digital, February 2026). That's a programme that's contracted sharply. The rate stood at 31% in 2017/18. Total recipients have fallen 9.1% between 2017 and 2024. And the trend hasn't reversed.

Standard CHC and Fast-Track Numbers

Of the 51,154 people currently on CHC, 34,140 are on standard CHC and 17,014 are on fast-track (NHS Digital, February 2026). Fast-track is the accelerated pathway for people who are rapidly deteriorating or approaching end of life. It exists to cut bureaucratic delay when time is critical. The fact that fast-track now accounts for a third of all CHC recipients is telling. For some of those families, the timeline matters — their relative's condition worsened while a standard assessment was still pending.

The 28-Day Assessment Target

The 28-day referral target reinforces the same picture. In September 2025, 76% of CHC referrals were completed within 28 days — meaning roughly one in four families waited longer (NHS Digital, February 2026). For a person in hospital or a care home waiting on a funding decision, those extra weeks matter. They can mean out-of-pocket care costs that are hard to recover later. If your case is past the 28-day mark, our escalation playbook sets out the five-step sequence and the day-29 NHS funding principle most families never hear about.

How Has the CHC Eligibility Rate Changed Year by Year?

The eligibility rate hasn't fallen evenly — it's eroded steadily across the past eight years, with no quarter ever reversing the trend. From 31% in 2017/18 to 24% by 2021 to 17% in 2025/26, the contraction has averaged roughly 1.75 percentage points per year (Nuffield Trust, September 2025). Over a similar period, total CHC spending rose 17% while recipient numbers fell 9.1% between 2017 and 2024 — meaning the remaining budget concentrates on a smaller group of higher-acuity cases.

The three reference points families should remember

• 2017/18 — 31% eligibility rate. The baseline year against which all subsequent decline is measured. The legal test (the "primary health need" standard under the National Framework) hasn't changed since.
• 2021 — 24% eligibility rate. The Nuffield Trust's mid-point measurement. By this point the rate had fallen 7 percentage points in four years.
• 2025/26 — 17% eligibility rate. The last figure published with NHS-authored commentary. From 14 May 2026 the PDF release format is discontinued — the same metric continues to publish in the quarterly XLSX, but without the narrative that used to flag year-on-year shifts.

Why the trajectory matters more than the snapshot

A 17% snapshot says one thing about how restrictive the current threshold is. The 31% → 17% trajectory says something different: that the same legal test is being applied more restrictively each year, with no clinical or demographic explanation. People's needs haven't shrunk. The system's tolerance for awarding eligibility has. That's the pattern the ADASS survey of 151 adult social care directors confirmed — three-quarters reported rising care requests from people previously eligible for CHC (Community Care, July 2025).

The trajectory is still measurable in the post-14-May XLSX files. What's missing is the NHS-authored commentary that used to call out the trend each quarter. Families and advocates citing the 31% → 17% decline now need to derive it themselves from the raw data, rather than reference an NHS Digital headline.

Why Transparent Data Matters for CHC Families

Published ICB-level figures reveal a near five-fold variation in CHC eligibility — from 20 to 95 eligible people per 50,000 adults — depending on where in England a person lives (Nuffield Trust, September 2025). That variation can't be explained by differences in local population health. It reflects inconsistent application of a legal standard that's supposed to be uniform.

How published data changes a family's negotiating position

In our experience reviewing CHC cases, families rarely know their local ICB's eligibility rate. They assume the refusal they've received reflects the national standard. It often doesn't. Access to published data changes that — it gives families and their advocates a concrete basis for arguing that local practice departs from what the National Framework requires.

The Staffordshire ICB case makes this concrete. That 27% cut in CHC eligibility was only identifiable as an outlier because published statistics exist for comparison. Without that data, an affected family would have had nothing but a refusal letter. No context. No basis for challenge. Read the full analysis of ICB eligibility cuts.

The accountability mechanism only works when both datasets are public

There's an accountability angle here that's often missed. The ADASS finding — that 73% of council directors attribute adult social care overspends to tightened NHS CHC eligibility — was only possible because both datasets are public (Community Care, July 2025). You need CHC data and social care spending data together to show that cost is being shifted rather than saved. Take away one set of figures, and the mechanism becomes invisible. For a fuller picture of how that cost-shifting lands on families, see our CHC council cost-shifting analysis.

If you want a structured starting point for your own situation, our free CHC eligibility screener takes about five minutes.

What the AACC System Is Meant to Deliver

The AACC data set is designed to eventually bring adult CHC, NHS-funded nursing care, joint-funded packages and children's continuing care into a single all-age data architecture (NHS England Digital, 2025). That's the core promise. Whether the eventual format also preserves the ICB-level granularity that makes CHC data useful for advocacy — that's the open question.

The implementation reality

AACC v2.0 is still under development. The standard hasn't yet been mandated for ICB submission, and as of May 2026 adult CHC statistics continue to publish through the existing CHC and FNC quarterly Management Information series, not AACC. Coverage that frames the 14 May change as a "move to AACC" is misreading what landed — see our Day-1 follow-up for the distinction in detail.

Why "All Age" matters for children with complex needs

The "All Age" framing is genuinely valuable if it eventually delivers. Children with complex health needs face eligibility battles that mirror those of adults — often with even less public awareness or advocacy support. Bringing their data into the same reporting framework creates, at minimum, the possibility of a more joined-up view of continuing care demand across the NHS. For families dealing with the adult-side regional variation, our CHC postcode lottery breakdown shows what that inconsistent application looks like in practice.

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Citation Capsule — Final Press Release: The NHS England Q3 2025/26 CHC statistical publication, released 12 February 2026, is the final report in the PDF press-release format. From 14 May 2026 the PDF format is discontinued; CHC data continues to publish quarterly as Management Information XLSX on the same NHS England statistics page. The Q3 2025/26 data shows 51,154 adults eligible for NHS CHC at a 17% eligibility rate — down from 31% in 2017/18 — with total recipients declining 9.1% between 2017 and 2024 (NHS Digital, February 2026).

Citation Capsule — Regional Variation: Nuffield Trust research published September 2025 found CHC eligibility rates across English ICBs ranging from 20 to 95 eligible people per 50,000 adults — a near five-fold variation that can't be explained by differences in population health. The variation is only measurable because NHS England publishes ICB-level data; without transparent figures, regional inconsistency in applying the National Framework would be invisible to families and advocates (Nuffield Trust, September 2025).

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What matters more than the format change is whether NHS England eventually publishes any commentary alongside the raw Management Information files — and whether the AACC v2.0 standard, when finally mandated, preserves ICB-level granularity and comparable time-series. If it does, the transition is worth supporting. If it smooths over regional variation in the name of simplification, families lose one of their most practical advocacy tools.

The Q3 2025/26 figures are the baseline worth holding: 51,154 adults on CHC, a 17% eligibility rate, 24% of families waiting more than 28 days for an assessment decision. For anyone currently in the CHC process, knowing where your ICB sits relative to those national figures is actionable information.

How Can Families Use This CHC Data in Practice?

The data transition itself doesn't change your legal rights under the National Framework — but it does change which figures you can cite in writing to support a challenge. The Q3 2025/26 NHS Digital report is the last published dataset in the old format (NHS Digital, February 2026), and the figures it captures are the most directly comparable to historical CHC statistics. Five practical steps families with an active CHC case can take:

1. Save the Q3 2025/26 dataset to your own files

NHS Digital usually keeps historical reports accessible, but format migrations sometimes break old URLs over time. Save the Q3 2025/26 publication (PDF + accompanying CSVs) locally. Preserving the last commentary-attached baseline now protects you in any future appeal — particularly if the AACC v2.0 standard, once mandated, restructures how the dataset is presented.

2. Record your ICB's most recent published eligibility rate

If your relative's case is being assessed in an ICB that historically sits below the national average (the postcode lottery showed near five-fold variation), document that rate now while it's clearly comparable. The Nuffield Trust analysis is the best independent breakdown.

3. Treat the 28-day target as a hard reference, not an aspiration

In September 2025, 24% of families were waiting longer than 28 days for a CHC decision. If your assessment is past 28 days, that's not "normal NHS delay" — it's an ICB failing the statutory expectation. Write to the ICB CHC team citing the framework target and the published completion rate, and ask for a date in writing.

4. Lock in evidence preparation before the data view shifts

ICB decisions remain challengeable regardless of which dataset the NHS publishes. But the cleanest arguments cite specific figures alongside specific evidence. Get your relative's DST documentation, GP records, and care home daily notes in order now — see our SAR family guide for the request templates.

5. Watch what NHS England does (or doesn't) publish next quarter

The May 2026 change discontinued the press-release format, but didn't replace it with anything narrative. The quarterly XLSX continues to publish on the same NHS England statistics page — without commentary. Watch the next quarter for two things: whether NHS England restores any form of summary alongside the raw data, and whether the AACC v2.0 standard moves toward mandatory submission. If ICB-level granularity ever degrades in either direction, that's an advocacy issue worth raising publicly — through ADASS, Healthwatch England, or your MP. ICB-level data is the single most useful piece of evidence for an appeal in a low-eligibility area.

What matters more than the format change is whether NHS England eventually publishes any commentary alongside the raw Management Information files — and whether the AACC v2.0 standard, when finally mandated, preserves ICB-level granularity and comparable time-series. If it does, the transition is worth supporting. If it smooths over regional variation in the name of simplification, families lose one of their most practical advocacy tools.

If you want a structured starting point for your own situation, our free CHC eligibility screener takes about five minutes, or work through our full CHC funding guide.

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This article is based on the NHS Digital Q3 2025/26 CHC and NHS-funded Nursing Care statistical publication (12 February 2026), the Nuffield Trust's "Consigned to the Too Difficult Box" report (September 2025), and the ADASS summer survey of 151 adult social care directors (July 2025). It does not constitute legal advice. Content was last reviewed in May 2026 and has been reviewed by legal professionals and social care professionals.

Frequently asked questions

Will CHC statistics still be published after May 2026?

Yes — NHS England is not stopping data publication, only changing the format. From 14 May 2026, the quarterly Statistical Release and Report PDFs have been discontinued; CHC data continues to publish quarterly as Management Information XLSX on the same NHS England statistics page. The All Age Continuing Care (AACC) data set is a parallel development that is still under v2.0 standards work and has not yet replaced the existing CHC and FNC quarterly series.

What does the Q3 2025/26 data show about CHC eligibility?

51,154 adults were eligible for NHS CHC in England in Q3 2025/26 — 34,140 on standard CHC and 17,014 on fast-track. The eligibility rate was 17%, down from 31% in 2017/18. Total CHC recipients have declined 9.1% between 2017 and 2024, a trend consistent with ICBs applying tighter interpretations under financial pressure (NHS Digital, February 2026).

Why does the 28-day referral target matter to families?

The 28-day target measures how quickly ICBs complete CHC assessments after a referral. In September 2025, 76% of referrals were completed within 28 days — meaning roughly one in four families waited longer. During that gap, a person may be in hospital, a care home, or at home without the right funding in place. Delays can create out-of-pocket costs that are difficult to recover later.

What is the postcode lottery in CHC funding?

Nuffield Trust research published in September 2025 found a near five-fold variation in CHC eligibility rates across ICB areas in England. The variation — from 20 to 95 eligible people per 50,000 adults depending on where you live — cannot be explained by differences in population health. It reflects inconsistent application of the National Framework, which sets a single legal eligibility test across all ICBs.

How can families use CHC data to challenge an ICB decision?

Published ICB-level data lets families and advocates compare local eligibility rates against the national average. If your ICB shows a low eligibility rate and a low completion rate, that context supports an argument that the ICB is applying unusually restrictive criteria. You can reference the published statistics in a formal dispute submission alongside your relative's own DST documentation.