Nursing home fees: which councils pay the most in 2025/26?

Of the nursing home fees councils pay, the highest is in City of London, at £1,809.97 a week for an older person in 2025/26, but it places very few people. Among councils with a real nursing market, Tower Hamlets pays most at £1,535.17, and Kent is the highest paying county council at £1,378.00, 5th of 152. The England median is £1,067.95 a week, up 5.3% on 2024/25, and the lowest rate, in Nottingham, is £712.63.

These are the rates councils reported to the Department of Health and Social Care for the usual cost of a week of nursing home care for someone aged 65 or over. They cover care and accommodation. The NHS pays its own contribution for the nurse, Funded Nursing Care, straight to the home on top. For anyone buying, valuing or running a nursing home, the council rate is the floor under a large share of income, and it varies more than most people expect.

What is the average nursing home cost in the UK?

For England, the council data gives a clear answer for a council funded resident. Add the median council rate of £1,067.95 to the 2025/26 Funded Nursing Care rate of £254.06 and a week of nursing care cost about £1,322.01, or £68,745 a year. In half of councils the weekly total was between £1,211.02 and £1,448.12, and in Kent it was £1,632.06. Funded Nursing Care rose to £267.68 in April 2026, so the same council rates plus the new nursing payment come to £1,335.63 at the median.

These figures show what a home is paid for a council funded resident. A home's own nursing home fees for people who pay privately are set by the home and can be higher than the council rate. When people compare nursing home costs in the UK, the council figure is a sound starting point for England, and anyone paying privately should ask the home for its fee list and what it includes. The council data covers England only.

How much do local authorities pay for care homes with nursing?

The top rate is 2.5 times the bottom one. Leave out City of London and the gap is still 2.2 times. Half of councils pay between £956.96 and £1,194.07. 98 of 152 councils now pay at least £1,000 a week, and 26 still pay less than £900.

Which councils pay the highest nursing home fees?

4 of the top ten are London boroughs. The other 6 are Calderdale, Kent, Hampshire, Devon, Windsor and Maidenhead and North Yorkshire. Several of these are large shire councils with thousands of care home beds, so their rates shape a whole regional market. Kent rose from £1,239.73 in 2024/25 to £1,378.00, a rise of 11.2%, the 5th largest increase in England. It ranked 15th in 2024/25.

The ten lowest payers

The bottom of the table is mostly northern and Midlands councils: 3 in the East Midlands, 2 in the South West, 2 in Yorkshire and the Humber, 2 in the North West, 1 in the North East. Nottingham pays £712.63, which is £355.32 a week below the median. A nursing home in a low paying area still pays registered nurses at market rates and care staff at least the National Living Wage, which is the same everywhere in England. In those areas, homes tend to lean harder on self funders and on Funded Nursing Care to make the numbers work.

Region by region

Grouping councils into the nine English regions shows a clear pattern. The South East has the highest median at £1,193.40 and the North East the lowest at £922.02, a gap of £271.38 a week. London is close behind at £1,189.60, and the North West and the North East sit at the bottom. The median nursing premium over residential care is smallest in the North East (£7.38) and largest in the West Midlands (£189.37). Every region has a wide spread inside it, so the regional figure is a guide only: the council that places a resident is what matters.

Who raised rates most, and who cut them

The median council raised its nursing rate by 5.3% for 2025/26. That compares with a 6.7% rise in the National Living Wage in April 2025, from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour. 122 of 152 councils raised their nursing rate by less than that. 6 raised it by 10% or more. 4 councils reported a lower rate than the year before: Blackburn with Darwen, Somerset, Dudley, Kingston upon Thames. Very large rises or falls can reflect a change in how a council calculates its usual rate, so check the council's own fee report before relying on a single year's move.

The nursing premium: how much more than residential care?

A nursing bed costs more to run than a residential one, even after Funded Nursing Care, because the home needs a nurse on every shift and usually more care staff. Subtracting each council's residential rate from its nursing rate gives a rough nursing premium. The median is £83.25 a week. In 29 councils the nursing rate is the same as or lower than the residential rate, and 6 of those report exactly the same figure for both. Where that happens, the council appears to expect Funded Nursing Care to cover the whole extra cost of nursing.

Kent's premium is £191.19. Medway's is larger at £250.82, because Medway's residential rate is much lower (£875.07), which shows why the premium alone can mislead.

The Funded Nursing Care rate for 2026 and how it adds on top

For every resident assessed as needing care from a registered nurse, the NHS pays Funded Nursing Care straight to the care home. The standard rate was £254.06 a week in 2025/26 and rose to £267.68 a week from 1 April 2026, a rise of 5.4%. A small number of residents who were on the old high band before 2007 attract £368.24. Self funders can qualify as well as council funded residents, but only in homes registered to provide nursing care.

Add the 2025/26 standard rate to the council rate and the median nursing home received about £1,322.01 a week for a council funded nursing resident. In Kent the total was £1,632.06. Because Funded Nursing Care is the same everywhere, it narrows the gap between councils in percentage terms, but the cash gap between City of London and Nottingham is unchanged.

Kent, Medway and the neighbours

Kent pays £252.11 a week more than Medway for nursing care, which is about £13,110 a year for one council funded bed. Medway sits 57th nationally, and Surrey is the lowest of the six neighbouring councils at £988.04. Kent has 127 care homes with nursing and 7,195 nursing beds registered with CQC.

Kent County Council's own Market Position Statement says it places 1,213 people in nursing care homes and lists "under-provision of dementia nursing care" as a gap. It also says that "any increase in provision should be for nursing and dementia care homes that cater for complex needs", and that the council will recommission its older persons residential and nursing care services. Recommissioning may bring changes to how the council buys and prices nursing care, so treat the 2025/26 figure as a starting point.

How we worked this out

We took every English council's Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund return for 2025/26, published by DHSC, which reports the usual weekly rate the council pays for nursing and residential care for people aged 65 and over, and the same figure for 2024/25. 152 councils reported a rate; the Isles of Scilly did not. We ranked the rates, grouped councils into the nine English regions and took the median for each, worked out the change on the year, and subtracted the residential rate from the nursing rate to get the premium. Funded Nursing Care rates and the National Living Wage come from gov.uk. Kent nursing home and bed counts come from CQC's register of active locations on 1 October 2026.