By Mencap
Help us
campaign
A campaign is when people work together to try to change something.
to free people with a
learning disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
and autistic people from modern day asylums - sign the petition.
Right now, there are over 2,000 people with a learning disability and autistic people locked away in modern-day asylums, with many far away from home and their families. Martha*, mother to Anna*, has spent years campaigning for her daughter to get the right support in the
community
A community is the people and places in an area.
.
“My daughter has a learning disability and is autistic. She has been detained in inpatient units for over ten years and has spent most of her adult life in institutionalised care.
“At one point she was briefly discharged back into the community. But it was still very restrictive care. It failed to give her the personalised care she needed, and she was readmitted back to hospital.
“She never self-harmed when she still lived with us in the community but does now since being admitted to hospital. Her injuries are shocking to look at – it breaks my heart to see her suffer.”
A joint investigation by ITV and Mencap has uncovered that around £534 million has been spent on inpatient beds for over 2,000 people with a learning disability and
autism
Autism is a disability. Autistic people find it difficult to understand what other people think and feel. They also find it difficult to tell people what they think and feel. Everyone with autism is different.
in England over the course of just one year.
Huge amounts of public money are being spent on the wrong sort of care that is often harming people. Instead, Government must make establishing the right community support an urgent priority – this includes the right social care, suitable housing, and a focus on early intervention and prevention.
The government
The Government are the people who run the country. The Government decide how much tax people should pay and how things like the National Health Service (NHS) should work.
committed to reducing the number of people locked away, like Martha, by 50% by 31 March 2024, and nowhere near enough progress has been made. New analysis from Mencap predicts that at the current pace of change it will be 6 years before Government meet this target.
Martha said: “My child's precious young life has been wasted for such a long time. I hope one day she can finally get the right support she needs to be able to live in the community near her family.”
Mencap, along with the
Challenging Behaviour
Challenging behaviour can be when someone hurts themselves, hits or pinches someone else, or breaks something. Some people might behave like this because they are upset or because people do not understand them.
Foundation and other organisations are calling for an updated and strengthened plan from the Government and new commitments. The waste of lives, and waste of money, must end.
*Both names have been changed for anonymity.