£62 million funding aims to accelerate patient discharge
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£62 million funding aims to accelerate patient discharge

The government has announced £62 million in funding to accelerate the discharge of people with learning disabilities and/or autism from mental health hospitals into the community.

Mental Health Practice. 23, 5, 6-6. doi: 10.7748/mhp.23.5.6.s3

Published: 09 September 2020

Figures from NHS Digital showed at the end of June, 2,085 learning disabilities and/or autism inpatients were in hospitals in England.

Of those in hospital at the end of June, 1,250 (60%) had a total length of stay of more than two years.

Establishing community teams

The government has said the funding, which will be given to local councils in England, can be spent establishing community teams, accommodation and staff training.

Health and social care secretary Matt Hancock called for a renewed focus to ensure prompt discharge into the community. It is not the first government attempt to reduce long-term hospital stays for people with learning disabilities and/or autism.

In 2015 NHS England launched the Transforming Care programme to support patients with learning disabilities and/or autism to move out of long-stay hospitals and into the community.

But the programme ended in March 2019, with its target to reduce inpatient bed capacity by 50% unmet.

However, RCN learning disability nursing forum chair, chief enablement officer and nurse consultant Jonathan Beebee said: ‘Local authorities are facing huge financial pressures as a result of the coronavirus, and I expect that social care will be affected by this in the year ahead.

‘I have been supporting people to be discharged from secure hospitals for the past five years and it is a complex process.’

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