Care Cost Benchmarks Toolkit 14^th Edition

This latest edition of LaingBuisson’s well-established Care Cost Benchmarks toolkit offers a fully updated, evidence-based cost model for operators and commissioners of care homes for older people, populated with actual data for 2025/26 and projections to the new financial year beginning in April 2026. Building up the full cost of care provision from granular detail, it facilitates a rational discussion on a reasonable level of fees needed to sustain care home services in any given area of England. First developed two decades ago in association with Rowntree Trust, this toolkit has become the trusted model for calculating sustainable fee rates for good quality, mid-market care homes.

As the sector faces the challenges of rising costs (including NLW uplifts) in a tight public sector financial environment, having access to reliable, up-to-date cost data has never been more critical.

The Care Cost Benchmarks toolkit provides comprehensive financial clarity through a fully interactive spreadsheet model, allowing users to explore a detailed breakdown of care home costs at local, regional, and national levels across England and in Wales as a whole. Covering residential care, residential care with dementia, nursing care, and nursing care with dementia, this toolkit highlights the fee gap between local authority payments and the actual costs incurred by care homes.

This year’s analysis reveals persistent underfunding in many geographies, particularly for residential care for older people, adding pressure on providers to bridge the gap with higher fees from private payers. In the case of nursing care, the data is more ambiguous. There is a concern that some councils may have overstated the fees they pay nursing homes by failing to observe instructions not to include NHS Funded Nursing Care in their returns to DHSC. A prominent ‘health warning’ is displayed in the toolkit’s nursing care tabs.

By leveraging the latest available data and proven methodologies, the toolkit offers robust, customisable parameters for accurate local cost adjustments. This makes it an indispensable resource for anyone conducting cost analysis for care homes, aiding in effective negotiations, optimising operational efficiency, and ensuring financial sustainability in an ever-evolving care landscape.

• Council and CCG commissioners and finance staff
• Care home groups
• National and local care associations
• Advocacy groups
• Social policy experts
• Politicians, civil servants and policymakers involved with long-term care funding
• Legal teams working on care funding Judicial Reviews
• Investors and developers

• A fully interactive spreadsheet that empowers users to see a breakdown of the cost of delivering care at local authority, regional, and national levels for England and Wales.
• The cost of care for 2025/26 and the projected cost of care for 2026/27.
• Full cost of care breakdowns across four care modalities:
  • Residential care for people aged over 65 years
  • Residential care for people aged over 65 years with dementia
  • Nursing care for people aged over 65 years
  • Nursing care for people aged over 65 years with dementia
• The ‘fee gap’ between the average local authority paid fee and the median care home cost per resident (including return on capital and operations).
• Detailed breakdown of care home costs including over 25 cost-line items, split into five sections:
  • Staff
  • Care home premises
  • Supplies and services
  • Head office costs
  • Return on capital
• Transparent parameters that clearly set out the inputs and allow purchasers to adapt to reflect their own specific conditions.
• A detailed explanatory guide to the Care Cost Benchmarks.
• ‘Single click’ selection of any administrative area, including:
  • Country (England or Wales)
  • Region
  • Local authority with responsibility for adult social care provision
  • District council

• Introduction & Background
• Objective
• Scope
• The evidence base
• Explanatory notes on the component parts of the Care Cost Benchmarks:
  • National operating cost parameters
  • Local operating cost parameters
  • Return on capital and operating return
• The cost of fully implementing a Fair Cost of Care across England