A Systematic Review of Outcomes for People With Intellectual Disabilities and/or Autistic People Following Resettlement From Long-Stay Hospitals in the UK

Background
Despite attempts to reduce the use of modern secure specialist hospitals (long-stay hospitals) for people with intellectual disabilities and/or autistic people, there remains a limited understanding of what happens after discharge.

Method
Systematic review of outcomes following resettlement from UK long-stay hospitals.

Results
Outcomes generally improve following resettlement, although some soon level off and rarely reach the level of comparable populations. We still know little about service costs or about how many readmissions/reconvictions to expect given the complexity of people's needs and such rates in other settings. Above all, most studies fail to meaningfully include the voices of people themselves.

Conclusions
Outcomes improve after hospital, but this is not guaranteed and even improved outcomes may still not be good enough. Future research should aim to fill a number of gaps in current knowledge—but in particular must draw much more meaningfully on the lived experience of people and families.