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: May 2026, MHSDS: April 2026

Official statistics, Experimental statistics

Publication Date:: 18 Jun 2026
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: Regions, Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS Trusts
Date Range:: 01 May 2026 to 31 May 2026

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.

Current Publication

This issue has been resolved in time for the May-26 publication but impacts historical publications using data from the Assuring Transformation dataset.

Historical Publication

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.

NHS England apologises for any inconvenience caused.

18 June 2026 09:30 AM

Methodological Changes to the publication

Two changes have been made to the methodology for measures within the AT data tables, with effect from the
publication of April 2026 data.

Patient total length of stay will now be calculated by combining contiguous episodes of care into spells.
All values for hospital start date and earliest admission date in episodes within the spell will be considered
to establish the original admission date.
Where patient records indicate that an episode of care ended on the last day of the month
and a new one started the next day, but the data indicates that it was a continuous stay in hospital,
the patient will now be counted as in hospital at the end of the month.

These changes will mean a more accurate view of the number of patients in hospital, and the total length of stay.
Full details of the change are published here

Announcement of methodological change to the statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in
mental health hospitals publication

18 June 2026 09:30 AM

New tables within Assuring Transformation data tables

NHS England have added 3 new sub-national tables to the AT data tables with effect from the April 2026 data.
These tables present data at Integrated Care Board (ICB), Region and England level:

- number and rate of admissions (for under 18s and adults)
- number and proportion of patients in hospital with the longest lengths of stay
- number of patients, by age group and patient category, and inpatient rate per million population

18 June 2026 09:30 AM

Integrated Care Board (ICB) changes from 1 April 2026

From 1 April 2026, 6 new Integrated care boards (ICBs) were established and the boundary of an existing ICB was widened
through the abolition of 12 existing ICBs.
Data in the AT tables is presented for the new ICBs. One existing ICB and Sub ICB Location (SICBL) (Frimley) was divided,
with parts of its geographical footprint forming part of 3 different ICBs. As the divided SICBL cannot be mapped forward,
the comparability of time series for these 3 ICBs is affected - these are noted in the data tables.

Further details of ICB changes are available at NHS England » Integrated care in your area

18 June 2026 09:30 AM

Summary findings from MHSDS

MHSDS main findings - April 2026

At the end of April 2026 (based on hospital spells data):

There were 3,950 people with a learning disability and autistic people in hospital.
There were 1,255 admissions and 1,325 discharges. 75% of these were discharged back into the community.
There were 463,590 referrals¹ for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

Of these inpatients:

1,140 (29%) had been in hospital for over 2 years.
There are 1,565 inpatients with a planned discharge date (40%).
370 (9%) had a delayed discharge.
The largest proportion (27%) were aged between 25-34 (1,060).
The lowest proportion (5%) were aged under 18 (185).
67% were male (2,645) and 33% were female (1,285).

Findings based on ward stays data:

There were 3,930 ward stays reported for the end of the period.
The largest group of inpatients were in an adult mental health ward (2,235, 57%), followed by a learning disabilities ward (705, 18%).
2,365 (60%) were in a non-secure setting². 1,305 (33%) were in a secure setting.
435 (11%) travelled over 50km from home to get to the hospital for care or treatment.
870 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 7:47 am

Statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals, AT: May 2026, MHSDS: April 2026

Summary findings from MHSDS

MHSDS main findings - April 2026

At the end of April 2026 (based on hospital spells data):

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