Thousands of people with learning disabilities held in ‘inhumane’ mental health units

Thousands of people with autism or learning disabilities are being held in mental health units, where some are sedated or subjected to restraint, isolation or abuse, according to learning disability campaigners.

People with autism or learning disabilities who are experiencing a crisis can be sectioned under the Mental Health Act even if they do not have a mental illness. As a result, many people are being held in secure units that campaigners say are like prison – sometimes hundreds of miles from home. Yet a review by NHS England earlier this year suggested that at least four in ten did not require hospital-level care.

In 2019 the NHS Long-Term Plan made a commitment to halve the number of people with autism/learning disabilities in inpatient care by March 2024. At the time there were 2,980 inpatients. Figures show, however, that two months ago, 2,045 people with autism or learning disabilities, including 205 children, were held in inpatient mental health hospitals in England. The overwhelming majority had been detained under the Mental Health Act. Analysis by Mencap shows that the Long-Term Plan’s target will not be met until at least 2029.

Patients are ‘overmedicated’

Jackie O’Sullivan, acting chief executive of the learning disability charity Mencap, said: “The average length of stay for inpatients is over five years. Bringing an end to this human rights scandal must be an urgent priority. We need investment in the right community support as well as Mental Health Act reform to ensure people with a learning disability and/or autistic people don’t get trapped in mental health hospitals.”

Jeremy Harris, whose daughter Bethany was held in a secure mental health unit, now works on review panels. He told the Times that he had seen “horrors,” adding: “I’ve seen a person held on a mattress by five people — one on each limb and one on their head. And that was how they lived [most] of their day. Totally, totally inhuman.”

He also said that he saw many people who were “overmedicated … just drowsy, dribbling, falling asleep.”

Leo Andrade told the Times that she had spent years campaigning for the release of her son Stephen from a psychiatric hospital. Now 28, he has a learning disability and is autistic. At the age of 18 he was sectioned, and he spent the next six years locked up in mental health units, more than 70 miles away from his family.

Andrade said she saw her “joyful, smiley boy” transform into a traumatised adult, who still wakes up in the middle of the night “screaming and crying to go home to Mummy”. She visited Stephen every weekend while he was detained in hospital, but was never allowed to see inside his room.

People locked away and ‘subjected to abuse’

She said: “It is worse than a prison, I would feel traumatised just from visiting. No person with autism or a learning disability should ever feel the pain of those institutions. Autistic people are not mentally ill, they do not belong in these places –  the hospitals are loud and enclosed spaces, which people with autism struggle with.”

Mel Merritt, head of policy at the National Autistic Society, said: “Mental health hospitals are not the right place for the vast majority of autistic people, yet we’ve seen countless harrowing examples of people being locked away and subjected to abuse.”

NHS England said: “We continue to have a strong focus on both reducing admissions to mental health hospitals for people with a learning disability and autism, and on supporting people to be discharged in a timely way.”