Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 17 of the NHS Long-Term Plan implementation framework, what criteria will be used to calculate the local area share of the required further reduction of inpatient usage and beds for (a) autistic people and (b) people with learning disabilities.

Publication of the Implementation Framework begins the process of strategic system planning. System plans for delivery through to 2023/24 are required, with an initial submission in September 2019 and a final submission to follow by mid November 2019. Plans should fully align across the organisations within each system so that they can subsequently be translated into organisational plans for 2020/21, which will be required in early 2020.

The NHS Long Term Plan states that by March 2023/24, inpatient provision will have reduced to less than half of 2015 levels and, for every one million adults, there will be no more than 30 people with a learning disability and/or autism cared for in an inpatient unit. For children and young people, no more than 12 to 15 children with a learning disability, autism or both per million, will be cared for in an inpatient facility.

At a local level, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are expected to reduce inappropriate hospitalisation of people with a learning disability, autism or both to meet these targets. The targets are for people for a learning disability, autism or both as a whole and do not differentiate between individual groups of patients (other than by age). The target rates expressed in the Long Term Plan are based on the Office for National Statistics mid-year population estimates for 2017 and translate into different inpatient counts in each CCG dependent on the size of the local population. Areas with larger populations will therefore have higher inpatient targets than those with smaller populations.