‘Life in a box’: young autistic man confined in hospital’s former file room | News | The Sunday Times

His sectioning is subject to a rolling review and he can be discharged at any time by the doctor in charge of his care. It means the Priory, a private company receiving large amounts of NHS funding for his care, is also in charge of deciding whether he is fit for release. There is no suggestion that Patient A’s funding has had an influence on his care plan at the hospital...

Patient A is stuck inside a system the government vowed to fix in 2011, after the abuse of adults with autism and severe learning disabilities was exposed by the BBC’s flagship investigations programme, Panorama...

In 2015 NHS England launched its Transforming Care programme, which aimed to reduce the number of autistic people and those with learning disabilities in mental health hospitals. But while the number of people with learning difficulties in hospitals has fallen, the number of autistic people in mental health hospitals has risen by 59 per cent since 2015 to 700 (autistic people only), according to NHS figures. When taking into account autistic people with and without learning difficulties, the figures have risen from 1,100 in 2015 to 1,215 today.

“People can deteriorate because the environment is not right for them and that can make their behaviour worse,” said Dan Scorer, Mencap’s policy expert...

Experts say that for those with autism, being confined in a unit such as Patient A’s exacerbates aggressive behaviour. As a result they become trapped in a vicious cycle of overmedication and ever more draconian restrictions on their liberty.

“People with autism can have sensory problems. They need the right space to live in. A nice garden. The correct lighting. A comfortable home,” says Alicia Wood, who has studied the effects of long-term segregation on people with autism and learning disabilities for the government’s oversight panel, led by Baroness Hollins.

Some are left “traumatised” after long-term inpatient care. Moving out can initiate a period of three to six months in which “their behaviour can be extremely challenging.”