Care Deserts UK 2026 — Lowest Care-Home Bed Capacity per Older Resident

Age-adjusted, beds-led analysis of care-home supply across English local authorities. Primary metric: active registered care-home beds per 100 residents aged 75+. "Care desert" bands are derived from the national distribution, not a fixed threshold.

What this ranking measures — and what it does not

This page ranks supply of CQC-registered care-home beds per 100 residents aged 75+. It is not a ranking of care quality, user satisfaction, or any judgement about a local authority's adult-social-care performance. Many factors outside a council's control (private-market provision, planning, demographics) shape these numbers. Sources: OHID Fingertips indicator 92490 (care-home beds per 100 aged 75+) and ONS mid-year population estimates. See the methodology page for the full source list, refresh cadence and limitations. If you believe the figure for a specific local authority is incorrect, please tell us.

Methodology in one sentence

We measure local care-home supply using active registered care-home beds per 100 residents aged 75 and over, then classify each local authority by its position in the national distribution. This is a better proxy for likely demand than counting homes per total population.

Full methodology, data sources, and validation notes →

National distribution (beds per 100 aged 75+)

Median

9.3

Mean (sd)

8.97 (2.20)

Severe-undersupply ceiling (p10)

6.3

Well-supplied floor (p75)

10.4

Based on 111 local authorities with complete primary data (bed coverage ≥ 50% of active locations). Bands: severe undersupply = bottom decile; undersupply = bottom quartile; well supplied = top quartile.

30 most under-supplied local authorities (beds-led, age-adjusted)

Ranked by registered active care-home beds per 100 residents aged 75+, lowest first. Percentile rank is the LA’s position in the national distribution (0 = lowest, 100 = highest). Z-score is standard deviations from the mean.

#	Local authority	Region	Pop. 75+	Active beds	Beds /100 age 75+	Percentile	Z-score	Band
1	Hackney	London	10,500	314	3.0	1	-2.71	Severe
2	Haringey	London	12,200	375	3.1	2	-2.66	Severe
3	Southwark	London	13,300	523	3.9	3	-2.30	Severe
4	Kensington and Chelsea	London	10,200	443	4.3	5	-2.12	Severe
5	Westminster	London	11,400	488	4.3	5	-2.12	Severe
6	Camden	London	11,500	523	4.5	5	-2.03	Severe
7	Tower Hamlets	London	8,100	387	4.8	6	-1.89	Severe
8	Newham	London	11,700	595	5.1	7	-1.76	Severe
9	Brent	London	18,700	974	5.2	8	-1.71	Severe
10	Hounslow	London	15,600	885	5.7	9	-1.48	Severe
11	Lewisham	London	14,600	905	6.2	10	-1.26	Severe
12	Barking and Dagenham	London	10,500	657	6.3	13	-1.21	Severe
13	Bromley	London	29,600	1,857	6.3	13	-1.21	Severe
14	Cornwall	South West	76,800	4,818	6.3	13	-1.21	Severe
15	Ealing	London	21,600	1,467	6.8	14	-0.99	Undersupply
16	Lambeth	London	13,200	899	6.8	14	-0.99	Undersupply
17	Hammersmith and Fulham	London	9,000	622	6.9	15	-0.94	Undersupply
18	Portsmouth	South East	13,700	957	7.0	16	-0.89	Undersupply
19	Tameside	North West	19,900	1,415	7.1	17	-0.85	Undersupply
20	Harrow	London	20,200	1,461	7.2	18	-0.80	Undersupply
21	Havering	London	24,500	1,779	7.3	21	-0.76	Undersupply
22	Redbridge	London	18,600	1,355	7.3	21	-0.76	Undersupply
23	St Helens	North West	19,200	1,411	7.3	21	-0.76	Undersupply
24	Greenwich	London	12,900	957	7.4	23	-0.71	Undersupply
25	Wigan	North West	31,500	2,340	7.4	23	-0.71	Undersupply
26	Bexley	London	21,700	1,618	7.5	25	-0.67	Undersupply
27	Merton	London	13,100	984	7.5	25	-0.67	Undersupply
28	Leicestershire	East Midlands	69,400	5,236	7.5	25	-0.67	Undersupply
29	Waltham Forest	London	13,500	1,026	7.6	26	-0.62	Average
30	Dudley	West Midlands	32,300	2,491	7.7	28	-0.58	Average

Cost is confounded by London and South East land and labour costs — lower supply does not mechanically cause higher prices, and London’s high property costs drive fees in parallel.

10 best-supplied local authorities

#	Local authority	Region	Beds /100 age 75+	Nursing /100 age 75+	Band
1	Leicester	East Midlands	14.0	3.2	Well supplied
2	Middlesbrough	North East	13.7	7.0	Well supplied
3	Kingston upon Thames	London	13.6	10.7	Well supplied
4	Surrey	South East	12.7	8.0	Well supplied
5	Stoke-on-Trent	West Midlands	12.6	7.0	Well supplied
6	Croydon	London	12.5	7.4	Well supplied
7	Brighton and Hove	South East	12.3	6.7	Well supplied
8	Newcastle upon Tyne	North East	12.1	7.5	Well supplied
9	Darlington	North East	12.1	5.9	Well supplied
10	Nottingham	East Midlands	11.7	5.2	Well supplied

Cost vs supply (using the new primary metric)

Correlation between beds per 100 residents aged 75+ and weekly residential care cost, across 109 local authorities that have both a published cost and adequate bed coverage.

Pearson r = 0.073 between beds per 100 aged 75+ and weekly residential cost.

Bottom supply quartile averages £1,371/week vs £1,401/week in the top supply quartile. Cost is confounded by London and South East land and labour costs; treat this as descriptive, not causal.

Legacy secondary metric — homes per 10,000 total population

Retained for continuity. Not the primary measure: it treats every home as equivalent regardless of size, and dilutes the denominator with residents too young to drive care demand.

#	Local authority	Total population	Active homes	Homes /10k (legacy)	Beds /100 age 75+ (primary)
1	Tower Hamlets	310,300	10	0.3	4.8
2	Westminster	204,400	9	0.4	4.3
3	Hackney	259,200	13	0.5	3.0
4	Southwark	307,700	14	0.5	3.9
5	Camden	210,100	12	0.6	4.5
6	Hammersmith and Fulham	183,200	11	0.6	6.9
7	Newham	351,100	23	0.7	5.1
8	Islington	216,600	18	0.8	8.2
9	Kensington and Chelsea	143,400	11	0.8	4.3
10	Wandsworth	327,500	26	0.8	8.6

Bands

SevereSevere undersupply (bottom decile)

UndersupplyUndersupply (bottom quartile)

AverageAverage (interquartile range)

Well suppliedWell supplied (top quartile)

No dataInsufficient data

Frequently asked questions

What is a care desert?

On TreatCompare a care desert is a local authority in the bottom quartile of care-home bed capacity per 100 residents aged 75 and over. The bottom decile is labelled severe undersupply. Bands are set by the observed national distribution, not a fixed editorial threshold.

Why beds instead of number of homes?

Care homes vary hugely in size — from 6-bed residential homes to 120-bed nursing villages. Counting "number of homes per capita" treats a 6-bed home the same as a 120-bed home, overstating supply in areas with many small homes and understating it where a few large providers dominate. Registered beds is the correct capacity measure.

Why per 100 aged 75+?

Care home residents are overwhelmingly 75 and over. Using total population dilutes the denominator with people who will not use a care home this decade, which makes London look worse and coastal retirement areas look better than demand actually justifies. "Beds per 100 aged 75+" is the standard OHID Fingertips indicator (92490) and aligns with the public-health benchmark.

Which area has the lowest bed capacity?

Hackney in London has the lowest registered care-home bed capacity on our primary metric, with 3.0 beds per 100 residents aged 75+. That is 2.71 standard deviations below the national mean.

All care costs Nursing care deserts Methodology Find a care home

Data sources: CQC Care Directory (Open Government Licence v3.0) for registered care-home locations and bed counts, filtered to active non-dormant locations. ONS 2022 mid-year population estimates for 65+ and 75+ denominators. NHS England ASC-FR for residential and nursing weekly unit costs. OHID Fingertips indicators 92490 and 92493 used as validation benchmarks. See the full methodology for data dates, QA checks, and known gaps.