The National Autistic Society Cymru is calling on the next Welsh Government to introduce an Autism and Learning Disability Bill to save autistic people being unnecessarily detained in hospitals and save the public millions.

Currently, around 140 autistic people and people with a learning disability from Wales are detained in mental health hospitals. Such settings are inappropriate for most autistic people, with accounts of abuse, overmedication, unnecessary restraint, and solitary confinement a common occurrence.

The average length of stay in a mental health hospital is almost five years, often miles away, meaning families face long travel times to visit their loved one. The National Autistic Society Cymru says that the inadequacy of existing safeguards and duties on public bodies is a major barrier to getting autistic people and people with a learning disability out of these units and new legislation is needed to solve the crisis.

The average annual cost of supporting people in the community starts from as little as £13,000 per year for people living with friends or family, and increases to £80,000 for supported accommodation. This is compared with an average annual inpatient unit cost per person of £214,000. Even the highest intensity community support costs £130,000–£200,000 less per person each year than the cost of placing someone in an inpatient unit.

If numbers in such units were halved, it could save Wales between £9 million and £14 million a year. But these savings cannot be realised without new legislation.

Families or autistic people and people with a learning disability have highlighted the cost of unnecessary detention with their Stolen Lives campaign, which highlighted that many autistic people and people with a learning disability could have had their needs better met in the community with the right support in place, and that sectioning is not the answer when services fail to meet a person’s needs. 

The National Autistic Society Cymru is calling for an Autism and Learning Disability Act that would provide a clear statutory framework to: 

• Strengthen the rights of autistic people and people with a learning disability to get the support they are entitled to
• Address systemic fragmentation across services
• Improve accountability when systems fail

James Radcliffe, External Affairs Manager for the National Autistic Society, Wales, said:

“The next Welsh government has the opportunity to end the unnecessary detention of autistic people. Currently existing laws are failing to protect autistic people. Families are unable to challenge services to allow them to bring their loved ones home.

An Autism and Learning Disability bill could end this injustice and end this human rights failure. It would strengthen the protections and rights for autistic people and people with a learning disability and it would also save the taxpayer millions.”