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Adult Social Care User Survey (ASCS) 2022-23 guidance and materials for councils

The Adult Social Care Survey (ASCS) asks service users questions about quality of life and what impact care and support services have on their quality of life. 2022-23 is the thirteenth year the survey has taken place. This page contains the survey administration guidance document and the materials required for councils to undertake the survey

Page contents

Guidance

This survey administration guidance document sets out the actions that Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) will need to perform in order to carry out the 2022-23 Adult Social Care Survey and provide the data to NHS Digital. CASSRs are strongly encouraged to read the guidance document fully before starting the survey.

We have provided some additional guidance about the new validation process, submitting the data return and data quality reports.

Additional questions

Any additional questions or free text boxes that CASSRs would like to include as part of the survey must be sent to NHS Digital to review, this includes questions that have been approved for previous surveys.

All additional questions must be submitted using the additional questions form. This form needed to be returned to [email protected] by Friday 25 November 2022.

A selection of additional questions previously used is available with the question bank. 

Sample size calculator

The sample size calculator informs CASSRs how many questionnaires they need to send out, based on their eligible population and anticipated response rate.

Questionnaires, letters and other materials

ASCS 2022-23 questionnaires 

zip 14 MB

ASCS 2022-23 interview scripts 

zip 12 MB

Translated materials

Translated versions of the questionnaire, covering letter, reminder letter and consent form are now available for all 17 languages.

Arabic translated materials

zip 7 MB

Bengali translated materials

zip 9 MB

Chinese (Mandarin) translated materials

zip 3 MB

French translated materials

zip 206 KB

Greek translated materials

zip 9 MB

Gujarati translated materials

zip 4 MB

Hindi translated materials

zip 4 MB

Italian translated materials

zip 198 KB

Polish translated materials

zip 11 MB

Portuguese translated materials

zip 12 MB

Punjabi (Indian) translated materials

zip 3 MB

Somali translated materials

zip 11 MB

Spanish translated materials

zip 12 MB

Tamil translated materials

zip 7 MB

Turkish translated materials

zip 9 MB

Urdu translated materials

zip 6 MB

Data return

The final data return is available through the Strategic Data Collection System (SDCS). For more information on SDCS, contact the data collections team. Only the final version that is available on SDCS can be submitted. 

A draft version of the data return is available.

The final data return is protected to ensure the structure of the data return is not changed. Councils are able to request an unprotected version of the data return for their internal use only. The unprotected version of the data return must not be used for the submission that is made to NHS Digital. If councils require a copy of the unprotected data return, please email [email protected] to request it. Please include in the email the reason you require the unprotected version of the data return and confirmation that you understand that only the version on SDCS can be used to submit data to NHS Digital.

Validation

The 2022-23 ASCS validator process has been updated so councils receive an automated validation report when they make a successful submission through SDCS.

The validation report is sent to the email address provided in the sign off sheet in the data return. Further details on the process was provided in an email to councils in February 2023. If councils require further information, or have not received the email then please contact new NHS England (NHS Digital merged with NHS England on 1 February 2023) via [email protected]. 

Learn more about the data from previous surveys

Last edited: 4 April 2023 12:29 pm