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Thirty-four people in Caerphilly County Borough died last year while waiting for the council to arrange a care package, figures obtained by the BBC reveal.

The BBC’s Shared Data and BBC Wales contacted 206 councils in the UK and the five health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland to uncover the extent of the social care crisis.

As well as the number of deaths of people waiting for care packages, the BBC also got information on how long people had to wait for an initial assessment once they got referred to social services.

In 2021/22 in Caerphilly County Borough, the longest wait for an individual was 212 days, while the median wait was five days.

In 2022/23, the longest wait was 139 days while the median wait was three days.

The BBC also asked councils about how many home care contracts were handed back to it. In 2021/22, 75 contracts totalling 682 hours of care were handed back; while in 2022/23, there were 85 contracts totalling 861 care hours.

The council did not provide details on how long people had to wait for their care packages to start.

Across the UK, 1,399 people died waiting for their care packages, while 13,000 home-care packages were handed back to councils over the past two years – largely because companies lacked the staffing capacity to fulfil them.

Charity Age UK said this was leaving “substantial numbers of older people” experiencing disrupted care,  which it said was “distressing”. 

The result of delays across the system, it said, was leaving older people dying “before ever receiving the help they need.”

Caroline Abrahams, Charity director at Age UK, said: “Some of the most significant information presented here relates to the frighteningly big number of contracts being handed back by care providers to the councils which commissioned them, generally because they just can’t get enough staff to care for older people in their own homes.

“This equates to substantial numbers of older people experiencing very disrupted care arrangements, which is distressing for them as they have to get to know new care workers. It is also a recipe for poor quality care, since continuity is crucial in sustaining the good, trusting relationships which are at the heart of any good service.”

The National Care Association and the Local Government Association said the system was struggling through years of under-investment.

The Welsh Government, which is responsible for health and social care in Wales, said it was investing £70m this year to improve the pay of carers to £10.90 per hour.

A Caerphilly County Borough Council spokesperson said: “Like all local authorities in England and Wales, Caerphilly CBC is facing significant pressures in some areas of its social care services. Recruitment and retention within some key staff groups continues to be a problem despite efforts to change recruitment processes and offer more attractive remuneration packages.

“The position is made worse by a very fragile private care sector which has led to packages of care being delivered by private care companies being handed back to the authority to provide thus worsening the pressures on in-house services.

“Whilst most people who require care services receive them in a timely manner, there are examples where some people will waiting longer than we would wish.”

How did other councils in Gwent compare?