A recent parliamentary Q&A exchange emphasises the (lack of) progress regarding inpatients, and suggests how obdurate this ‘problem’ is, despite repeatedly stated ambitions to reduce the numbers.
Department of Health
Long Stay Patients: Learning Disability
Q Asked by Luciana Berger, Shadow Minister (Mental Health)
“To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of people with learning disabilities residing in long-stay hospitals in each year since 2013.”
A Answered by: Alistair Burt, Minister of State, Department of Health The Minister of State, Department of Health
Answered on: 26 May 2016
“The number of patients in an inpatient setting with learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorder and/or behaviour that challenges on 30 September 2013 was 3,250, on 30 September 2014 was 3,230 and on September 2015 was 3,000 (Learning Disability Census: England 2013/14/15).”
Details of the latest (2015) Learning Disability Census can be found here . Two of its more depressing findings were that:
- Almost half of inpatients with learning disabilities were common to each census since 2013
- Just over a quarter of inpatients involved in one or more adverse experience and restrictive measure.