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.