July 2025 – Written for Ability Beyond Borders (www.abilitybeyondborders.org)

The experience of autistic people in psychiatric hospitals is an area of significant concern, and has received harrowing media coverage in the UK in recent years. The UK government pledged that, in March 2024, they would reduce the amount of Autistic and learning-disabled people in psychiatric hospitals by 50%, meaning that no more than 1,445 inpatients would remain in hospital. Unfortunately, this target was missed by more than 40%, and disability rights charity Mencap predicted that it would not be reached for another 6 years (Cotterill, 2024). This is a tragic failure by the UK government to improve the quality of life of Autistic and learning-disabled people and has grave implications for their human rights.

Autistic people’s experiences of psychiatric hospitals can be complex and very challenging (if not completely untenable) for many reasons. For example, these units are often noisy, with bright lights, inadequate staffing and routines that are different to that of home. They may also be a long distance from someone’s home, which Autistic people who have needs around maintaining a sense of familiarity may find highly distressing. All of these factors may lead to a very unpleasant cycle of overwhelm (NEAS, no date). It is vital that, when hospitalisation is totally unavoidable, autistic people are cared for by adequately trained staff who are aware of how to minimise the effects of these problematic factors and help the person feel comfortable. An autistic person’s needs around communication may also complicate their experience of psychiatric care. Any language used by a healthcare professional needs to be as direct and explicit as possible, whilst also being sensitive. It should also be understood that an autistic person going through a crisis might have less of an ability to communicate and understand what is happening around them.

The National Autistic Society is of the view that mental health hospitals are inappropriate environments for most autistic people and can have severe effects on wellbeing, with many alarming cases of unnecessary restraint, seclusion and over-medication. In January 2025, NHS data showed that 2,040 people diagnosed as autistic or as being learning-disabled are in English inpatient psychiatric hospitals, with autistic people making up 1,480 (73%) of this figure (NAS, 2025). On the reasons for this, the National Autistic Society has said that “the lack of appropriate community mental health care for autistic people means that some reach crisis-point and are admitted to mental health hospitals” (UK Parliament, 2023).

Writing about his own experience in a psychiatric ward, David Gray-Hammond said:

“Psychiatric wards are intimidating places. I spent the first 48 hours under round-the-clock supervision. Every aspect of my day-to-day life was under the microscope. Something I witnessed regularly and experienced myself, was the use of restraint. For me, this took the form of chemical restraint, being given powerful tranquilisers that me quiet.”

He also described being treated as a nuisance by staff, who seemed to forget that he also did not want to be there (Gray-Hammond, 2024).

Experience Study – Derek Blenkinsop

Derek Blenkinsop, a 57-year-old man with learning differences, experienced years of living in a psychiatric hospital in the UK. It wasn’t the right environment for him, and he has since got his own bungalow in which he is supported by family and carers who come in and out. He prefers living at home, and his care is funded by Sunderland Council and is provided by a local charity. This care has had a very positive impact and, although money is obviously not as important as his quality of life, it is also worth noting that it also costs less. Derek’s carer Eddy said “there’s definitely more individuality about Derek now” and, when he visited him in hospital, “there wasn’t any personality showing”. Derek says he “has confidence in the staff” and is now able to spend his time doing things he loves, which include colouring, listening to music and seeing his family. Very importantly, he also feels he has his privacy back (Cotterill, 2024). Derek’s story highlights the needlessness of sending people like him to hospital, which is a wholly inappropriate and damaging environment that can strip away individuality and fulfilment in life.

Experience Study – Alexis Quinn

Alexis Quinn, an Autistic author in the UK, spent years in a psychiatric hospital. Alexis, a former teacher who had represented her country in international swimming competitions, started to experience serious mental health issues following her brother’s death. She said “my thoughts were really repetitive and quite awful at times” and “my skin felt fiery, my hearing was very sensitive”. Alexis says these experiences were due to her Autism, and that she hoped to have her needs met within the community. Against her wishes, however, she faced lengthy detainment under the UK’s Mental Health Act. After her admission, she said “everything just got a whole lot worse, which was unimaginable for me”. In the hospital, staff constantly changed, and the locked doors made her feel uncomfortable. She felt unsafe in the hospital and, after four years, she decided she had to take action.

With help from a retired GP, she escaped the hospital by running into a car, which took her to Dover. She then boarded a ferry to France, where she boarded a plane to Dubai. From here, she went to Lagos in Nigeria (BBC, 2024). When she got to Lagos, she immediately felt better, and created her own care plan with a routine and structure that would meet her needs. She stayed with her friend until she could find a home and a job, and her parents also brought her young daughter to join her soon after her arrival (Kelly, 2021).

She believes her hospitalisation was unnecessary and overly expensive to taxpayers, as well as believing she would have made a quicker recovery in the community. Like in the case of Derek Blenkinsop, she believed she “might have needed somebody to come into my house” at a relatively low cost, but that the UK’s psychiatric system had decided to “spend a couple of million on traumatising” her in hospital instead (BBC, 2024).

Her initial decision to go to her GP for help, she said, “was the biggest mistake” of her life. She had expected to receive help in the form of “maybe £5,000 worth of psychology, some occupational therapy, some speech and language therapy” but, she was instead thrown into a 3-and-a-half-year ordeal spanning 12 different psychiatric institutions, which she estimates would have cost the NHS around £2.5 million.

“All that money wasted on traumatising me and trying to fix something that A) isn’t broken and B) can’t be treated” – Alexis Quinn

(Kelly, 2021)

Now, Alexis is a well-known Autism and human rights campaigner, who has written various books and journal articles (Alexis Quinn, n.d.). Her story is an extreme example of how inappropriate hospital environments worsen outcomes for autistic people, intensifying their distress rather than alleviating it.

Experience Study – 22-year-old Autistic man in China

At present, support for Autistic children in China is mainly provided by professionals in “special schools” and rehabilitation institutions but, when they get older, “there is no specific place in society to accommodate Autistic adults, meaning that psychiatric hospitals have often unfortunately become their ultimate home”.

In the case of this individual, struggles stemming from the inadequacy of China’s public services has had a profoundly negative impact on their life. When he was 3 years old, he was refused admittance to various kindergartens due to issues around his ability to communicate, as well as aggressive behaviour. As a child, he had an “extremely poor ability to take care of himself” and, after he started elementary school at 7 years old, his teacher suggested to his parents that they take him to hospital, where he was diagnosed with Autism and Tourette’s. It was also recommended that he attend “rehabilitation training”, but his parents struggled to find an institution for him and he continued to go to school. He was later dismissed from school after breaking the rules. After a transfer to another school where his behavioural issues continued despite a slight improvement in his performance, he was later sent to Beijing Anding Hospital. He was medicated with anticonvulsants, as well antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs (sodium valproate, valproic acid sustained release tablets, aripiprazole and sertraline).

After five months, he was discharged from hospital and received training at a growth and development centre that he was eventually dismissed from due to becoming increasingly aggressive and often losing his temper. He was then refused from many other adolescent growth centres. His parents could not take care of him and he was admitted to hospital once again in 2015 (when he was 17). Once in hospital, he broke the rules and was often alone, not wanting to speak to the other patients. He also often attacked staff and self-harmed. He was given the antipsychotic drug amisulpride (at a dose of 1000 mg per day), as well as modified electroconvulsive therapy (MECT) a few times per week, which did not work and he cried loudly afterwards. He was put on a new therapy regime, which went some way to improving his mood swings, but was still unsatisfactory. Because of the lack of resources in the hospital, as well as the staff’s lack of skills around dealing with autism, his behaviour and emotions could not be changed through “rehabilitation training”, and he often had to be restrained to stop him from injuring himself and others (Liu, Liu & Chai, 2020).

This man’s story highlights the role that the systematic failure of public services has in a system where autistic adults “have nowhere to go”. Instead of receiving the proper care they require, autistic people often end up in psychiatric hospitals that are inappropriate environments that traumatise and hinder their quality of life (and personal development). If this individual had grown up in a different world where all autistic people could receive suitable education and housing in an environment that could accommodate their needs rather than imprisoning them in restrictive environments and traumatically overmedicating them, great injustices such as this could’ve been avoided.

Conclusion

Examining the current landscape for neurodivergent people in psychiatric hospitals reveals a system in need of urgent transformative change. Despite growing awareness and government pledges, major institutional failings have persisted and vulnerable people have been left to endure environments that are fundamentally incompatible with their needs. Personal accounts, such as the stories from the UK and China explored in this factsheet, highlight the damaging toll of institutionalisation and the ongoing lack of appropriate resources that properly meet autistic people’s needs in the community. Stories such as those of Alexis Quinn and Derek Blenkinsop highlight how individualised, community-based support can lead to significantly improved outcomes and lower costs.

The evidence is overwhelming. As they currently operate, psychiatric hospitals are often not the right place for autistic people and a fundamental shift in policy is required. This should take the form of a system that prioritises specialist support in the community, empowers people with autonomy and recognises the importance of treatment methods that are tailored to individual needs.

Until adequate alternatives to the current system are available, the rights, dignity and wellbeing of autistic and learning-disabled people will remain at risk. As neurodiversity advocates, it is important that we take strong and sustained political action on this issue to ensure that humane, effective care becomes a reality for everyone.

References

https://alexisquinn.co.uk/ https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/number-of-autistic-people-in-mental-health-ho-31

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-68924181

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/119634/pdf/

‘I escaped from hospital’

Autistic people shut away in mental health units for years

https://news.sky.com/story/you-start-to-believe-youre-ill-fight-to-free-autistic-people-from-hospitals-as-govt-misses-crucial-target-13117692

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32851358/