Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on its commitment to reduce the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in specialist inpatient care by 50% by March 2024 compared with March 2015.

We have made significant progress towards reducing the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in inpatient mental health settings.

For people who have a learning disability and who do not have an autism diagnosis, the data shows that there has been a 57% reduction in the number of people in hospital since March 2015. For people who have both a learning disability and autism diagnosis, there has been a 33% reduction in the number of people in hospital since March 2015. However, the number of people with an autism diagnosis, who do not have a learning disability, in hospital inpatient settings has increased significantly over the same period.

Taken together, this results in a net reduction of 30% against a commitment to reduce inpatient numbers by 50% by March 2024; more specifically there were 2,035 people with a learning disability and autistic people in a mental health inpatient setting in October 2023 compared to 2,905 in March 2015.

Actions underway to make more progress include investing an additional £121 million this financial year to improve community support as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, including funding for Children and Young People’s keyworkers.