Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reforming the social care system to allow people with learning disabilities to be supported in their communities rather than in inpatients units.

‘Building the Right Support’, published in 2015 by NHS England, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services is the national plan in England for reducing the number of people with learning disabilities or autistic people who are in a mental health inpatient setting. It set out a clear framework for commissioners to reduce inpatient capacity by developing more community services for people with learning disabilities or autistic people with behaviour that challenges.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to implementing the ‘Building the Right Support’ plan in full, achieving a 50% reduction in the number of people with a learning disability or autism who are inpatients in mental health settings (compared to the figure in 2015) by the end of 2023/24 and ensuring that every local economy has specialist community provision. NHS Planning Guidance for 2019/20 requires the National Health Service to achieve a 35% reduction as quickly as possible and no later than the end of 2019/20.

The Department will hold NHS England and all other delivery partners to account on achieving this.