Publication, Part of Statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals
Statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals, AT: March 2026, MHSDS: February 2026
Official statistics, Experimental statistics
Issue with legal status breakdowns in historical publications
Please note that an issue has been identified within the legal status breakdown within tables 2.3, 4.1 and 4.2. These breakdowns relate to whether the patient was detained under the Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act or other acts.
Impact
NHS England has completed an impact assessment which showed that previously the number of patients who were subject to the MHA was being overreported by 1 and 2% of total patients. In the most recent 12 months this was closer to 1% - the median across all time periods reported was 1.1% and 25 patients.
Most of these patients were detained under the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and other acts but were reported as MHA Other. Within the specific parts of the MHA, a small number of patients were reported under MHA Other but should have been reported under Part II, correcting the MHA Part II figures has largely not made a difference to the rounded figures. All figures for Part III with and without restrictions were reported correctly.
Historical Publication
This issue has been resolved in time for the May-26 publication but impacts historical publications using data from the Assuring Transformation dataset.
NHS England will not republish historical files with updated data but caution is advised in using these breakdowns and users should use the publications from the May-26 publication onwards for correct counts of patients detained under specific sections of the MHA. Statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals, AT: May 2026, MHSDS: April 2026 - NHS England Digital
NHS England apologises for any inconvenience caused.
22 June 2026 09:39 AM
Summary findings from MHSDS
MHSDS main findings - February 2026
At the end of February 2026 (based on hospital spells data):
- There were 3,775 people with a learning disability and autistic people in hospital.
- There were 1,075 admissions and 1,155 discharges. 75% of these were discharged back into the community.
- There were 469,165 referrals¹ for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
Of these inpatients:
- 1,100 (29%) had been in hospital for over 2 years.
- There are 1,505 inpatients with a planned discharge date (40%).
- 370 (10%) had a delayed discharge.
- The largest proportion (26%) were aged between 25-34 (985).
- The lowest proportion (6%) were aged under 18 (215).
- 67% were male (2,515) and 33% were female (1,235).
Findings based on ward stays data:
- There were 3,760 ward stays reported for the end of the period.
- The largest group of inpatients were in an adult mental health ward (2,130, 57%), followed by a learning disabilities ward (725, 19%).
- 2,305 (61%) were in a non-secure setting². 1,255 (33%) were in a secure setting.
- 450 (12%) travelled over 50km from home to get to the hospital for care or treatment.
- 775 patients were restrained at least once.
1 These include all open referrals without a hospital spell associated with them if the inpatient did not need to stay overnight in hospital.
2 Non-secure wards include inpatients in general wards. Secure wards include patients in low, medium and high secure ward settings.
Last edited: 22 June 2026 9:39 am