Unpacking the care‐related quality of life effect of England's publicly funded adult social care. A panel data analysis

Adult Social Care (ASC) is the publicly‐funded long‐term care program in England that provides support with activities of daily living to people experiencing mental and/or physical challenges. Existing evidence suggests that ASC expenditure improves service users' care‐related quality of life (CRQoL). However, less is known about the channels through which this effect exists and the effect on outcomes other than CRQoL. We fill this gap by analyzing survey data on ASC service users who received long‐term support from 2014/15 to 2019/20 using panel data instrumental variable methods. We find that the beneficial impact of ASC expenditure on the CRQoL of both new and existing users is mostly driven by users aged 18–64 without any learning disability and users with no learning disability aged 65 or older receiving community‐based ASC. Moreover, control over daily life, occupation, and social participation are the CRQoL domains that are improved the most. We also find that ASC expenditure has a beneficial effect on several other outcomes beyond CRQoL for both new and existing users including user satisfaction and experience, the ability to carry out activities of daily living independently, whether their home is designed around needs, accessibility to local places, general health, and mental health through reduced anxiety and depression. Greater ASC expenditure, however, does not address the need for other forms of support such as unpaid informal and privately‐funded care.