Percentage of end of life spent at home or in a community setting
Financial years ending 31 March 2017 to 2026

About this release

This annual release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides estimated information on the percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting by individuals who were in their last six months of life. Community settings include any location outside a hospital setting, such as home, care home, independent hospice or NHS specialist palliative care unit. Data is presented by financial year of death from 2016/17 to 2025/26, by NHS Board, Health and Social Care Partnership of residence and for Scotland. The figures presented for financial year 2025/26 are provisional.

Main points

• In 2025/26, there were 57,913 deaths in Scotland. This includes people who died after a fall but excludes deaths from other external causes such as accidents (see excel tables for more information on the exclusions). These individuals spent on average 89.8% of their last six months of life at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 10.2% spent in hospital. This is equivalent to an average of 19 days in hospital in the six months prior to death, similar to 2024/25.

This is a bar chart showing the percentage of the last six months of life spent at home or in a community setting from 2016/17 to 2025/26. The percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting has increased gradually, with some fluctuation, from 87.9% in 2016/17 to 89.8% in 2025/26. The percentage of time spent in the hospital setting continues to show a gradual decrease from 12.1% in 2016/17 to 10.2% in 2025/26. In 2025/26, on average 89.8% of the last six months of life was spent either at home or in a community setting, with the remaining 10.2% spent in hospital.

Close

Percentage of last six months of life spent at home or in a community setting; 2016/17 - 2025/26^p,1

^p Figures for 2025/26 are provisional.

¹ Figures 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, 2025/26 (89.8%) was slightly lower than 2020/21 (90.6%) and 2021/22 (90.1%), which had the highest percentages, but was higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic (88.8% in 2019/20). On average, an extra three days within the last six months of life was spent at home or in a community setting in 2025/26 compared to 2016/17. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic inpatient services in hospitals in the years 2020/21 and 2021/22 were greatly impacted. This is likely to have reduced the time individuals spent in hospital in these years.
• In 2025/26, males and females spent, on average, a similar percentage of their last six months of life at home or in the community. This varies by age group with males aged 18-44 spending a higher percentage (94.6%) of their last six months of life at home or in the community than females (90.9%); an average of seven days more for males. Whereas for individuals aged 85 and over, females spent a higher percentage (90.7%) of their last six months of life at home or in the community than males (88.3%); an average of four 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 calculated by measuring the amount of time spent in an NHS hospital in Scotland during the last six months of life and using this information to estimate the time spent at home or in a community setting, which includes any location outside a hospital setting, such as: home, care home, independent hospice or NHS specialist palliative care unit.

There has been a minor revision to the methodology in this publication which impacts the classification of community settings across all years reported. Previously, activity for individuals cared for in independent hospices and NHS specialist palliative care units were counted as part of hospital settings. This activity is part of specialist palliative care services provided by hospices and they are now excluded from the calculation for hospital setting. The change in methodology has been applied across all years reported (2016/17 to 2025/26) and this has resulted in a small increase in the percentage of time spent at home or in the community setting across all years. Ranging from an increase of 0.4 percentage points to 0.6 percentage points in the years reported. For more information, please see the full report.

It is estimated that hospital data for Scotland are 98% complete for 2025/26 and figures for this year should be treated as provisional. For more information, please see the full report.

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 2027.