Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities Experimental Statistics 2020 to 2021

The percentage of patients with a learning disability who have also been diagnosed with autism increased steadily from 19.8% in 2016-17 to 28.6% in 2020-21, a rise of 8.8 percentage points. Diagnoses of autism in patients without a learning disability rose by 0.3 percentage points (0.5% in 2016-17 to 0.8% in 2020-21) over the same period.

In 2016-17 patients with a learning disability were 26 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those without a learning disability. This fell to 22 times more likely in 2020-21.

These are new indicators introduced in 2020-21 which show that statistically significant numbers of patients with a learning disability who have been diagnosed with autism are prescribed antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and epilepsy drugs compared to patients who have autism but do not have a learning disability.

Patients who have been diagnosed with autism were

• 66 times more likely to be prescribed antipsychotics if they had a learning disability than those without a learning disability
• 66 times more likely to be prescribed benzodiazepines if they had a learning disability than those without a learning disability

Patients who have been diagnosed with autism and had an active diagnosis of epilepsy were

• 80 times more likely to be prescribed epilepsy drugs if they had a learning disability than those without a learning disability