Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of out-of-area placements made for inpatients in each year since 2009.
Information is not available in the format requested.
Inappropriate out of area placements (OAPs) are unacceptable and this Government is committed to delivering the target to eliminate these in non-specialist, acute mental health care by 2020/21.
NHS England and NHS Improvement now have a comprehensive national programme supporting reductions in OAPs, and every local area is currently developing a trajectory towards ending this practice by no later than 2021. The commitment to reduce OAPs has been formalised in the NHS 2018/19 planning guidance and included in the NHS Improvement Single Oversight Framework.