Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with a learning disability placed in assessment and treatment units (ATUs) had their placements reviewed between December 2012 and June 2013; how many such people were found to have been placed there inappropriately; and how many of those found to have been inappropriately placed in ATUs have since been moved into the community.

NHS England's paper Implementing the Recommendations of the Government's Response to the Francis Report and its Winterbourne Review Report confirms that during the period 12 December 2012 to June 2013 for clinical commissioning groups there were 1,279 reviews completed and 38 were outstanding. These have all now been completed. By October 2013, NHS England identified a further 1,360 people in specialised services commissioned by NHS England. 1,303 of these people had their care reviewed by the end of 2013 and 57 people were identified as no longer requiring a review. Using these data NHS England calculates that 35% of people who were in hospital on 1 April 2013 have now been transferred to another setting.

NHS England is identifying all people with learning disabilities in inpatient settings to ensure that they receive safe, appropriate, high quality care. NHS England is now collecting data quarterly for this purpose. It has recently published data as of March 2014. These data show that 2,615 people were identified as being in inpatient services with 2,334 of these people having had their care reviewed within the last 26 weeks. These data do not specifically identify people in inpatient settings within the specific period (December 2012 to June 2013) as a separate cohort.

NHS England's data does not identify people as being in “Assessment and Treatment Units” but use other categories of inpatient beds, settings and units drawn from categorisation developed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also used in the Learning Disability Census. The data identifies those people who are expected to transfer, as well as those who have no transfer date. The reviews of people's care identify those individuals for whom it is appropriate to move to alternative settings.

I have had several meetings with Department officials and NHS England to discuss progress on the commitments made in my oral statement of 10 December 2012 in the House of Commons, but have had no meetings with Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government about these commitments.