At ages above 75, residential care homes and nursing homes are dominant. In the 85 and over age group, the proportion was 93 per cent. Information about the number of residents in residential care homes and nursing homes could therefore be used as the basis for a fairly secure estimate of the institutional population aged 75 and over. It could also provide a pointer to changes in the institutional population aged 65 - 74. The information about the number of men and women living in residential care and nursing homes since 1991 is summarised in the next section of this Annex.
Registration is compulsory under statute.
Separate figures are not collected for men and women, nor is there any analysis by marital status. The number of long stay residents in residential care homes according to returns to the Department of Health are shown in Table E.1. It is available for 1994 to 1997. The number of registered beds from 1991 and the number of occupied beds from 1994 are shown in Table E.2. As with residential care homes, no analysis by sex or marital status is available.