Autism and Learning Disability: Psychiatric Hospitals

(asked on 28th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what baseline figure his Department will use to measure progress in reducing the number of people with a learning disability and/or autism in mental health hospitals by 50 per cent by end of March 2024 as set out in the NHS 10-year plan for people (a) under 18 years old, (b) between 18-24 years old, (c) aged 25 and over and (d) in all age groups.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 2nd April 2019

The NHS Digital Assuring Transformation dataset is used to measure the reduction in the numbers of children, young people and adults with a learning disability and/or autism who are inpatients in mental health settings in line with the national plan, ‘Building the Right Support’.

Assuring Transformation is a live data collection, and the data at the time of publication each month is subject to change with retrospective updates and additions. Patients may be reported on long after admission, for example, due to late diagnosis, leading to changes in the baseline count. The most recent patient count for March 2015, published by NHS Digital for the end of February 2019 is 2,890. This is the baseline for planned reductions in inpatient numbers and against which progress in meeting the aims set out in ‘Building the Right Support’ is measured.

The ambition for March 2020 is that we will reduce the rate of inpatients with a learning disability and/or autism to 18.5 adult inpatients in clinical commissioned group-commissioned beds per million adult population, and 18.5 adult inpatients in NHS England-commissioned beds per adult million population.

This will equate to a 35% reduction from March 2015 in the total number of inpatients. The NHS Long Term Plan commits to going further, with a net 50% reduction from March 2015 in the number of people with a learning disability, autism or both in specialist inpatient hospitals, by 2023/24. For every one million adults, there will be no more than 30 people with a learning disability and/or autism cared for in an inpatient unit. For children and young people there will be no more than 12 to 15 children with a learning disability, autism or both by 2023/24.

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