Brick by brick: resources to support mental health hospital-to-home discharge planning for autistic people and people with a learning disability

NHS England’s Learning Disability and Autism programme team has worked with the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust (HACT) to develop a flexible set of hospital to home discharge resources, intended to be adapted to suit local needs and circumstances.

Local partners in integrated care systems should use these resources to work together to make sure that planning for people’s future housing needs starts as early as possible after admission to hospital, and is undertaken in a fully joined-up way: in close co-production with the person and any family or loved ones.

Three resources have been developed:

• Resources to support mental health hospital-to-home discharge planning for autistic people and people with a learning disability.
• A hospital-to-home discharge protocol template: to be used or adapted flexibly by agencies in local areas, to ensure their local hospital discharge processes effectively support autistic people and people with a learning disability who are in mental health hospitals, in being discharged into housing which meets their needs.
• An individual housing needs assessment form, also provided as a template, to be flexibly used or adapted to align with or strengthen local requirements and processes.

Housing how to guide: Access to high quality housing plays a key role in enabling successful discharges of people from hospital into their own homes

The housing how to guide, published by Learning Disability England, gives people and their families access to information on rights and choices and will help them plan for what kind of housing is right for them and their family.

Building the right home update

Building the right home was issued in 2016 by NHS England, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services as part of the Transforming Care Programme. The guidance supports NHS and local authority commissioners to work with housing providers to expand the housing options available for people with a learning disability and autistic people, particularly for those people at risk of admission to a mental health hospital, or ready to leave hospital.

We are committed to making sure that people with a learning disability and autistic people have a choice about where they live and who they live with.

When people are not happy about where they live they can be more likely to display behaviours that challenge, which can then lead to them going into hospital.

People with a learning disability and autistic people should:

• be supported to live in their own home in the community with the right support
• have a choice about who they live with, and the location and community in which they live.
• have housing that works for them and meets their needs.
• be offered settled accommodation, or be able to make use of short-term accommodation and support to enable them to continue living independently in the community
• be able to stay in their home even if their care and support needs to change
• feel happy and safe in their home.

To do this we know we need to support partners in integrated care systems to work with local housing providers and other stakeholders to develop, remodel and adapt accommodation for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

This will mean that more people can live in their own home and get the support they need to live healthy, safe and rewarding lives.

Our work on housing

NHS England has made more than £100 million in capital grants available to support housing delivery. These grants can be accessed via housing leads and regional NHS England teams. Find out more about the application and allocation process for our capital grants.

Personal stories

The Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN) shares personal experiences of people with a learning disability and share their specific accommodation, care and support needs.

Find out more

Our national strategy Building the right support describes what good services and support looks like for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

The design checklist provides more information about our expectations and the principles that we use to support planning around the design of housing.

Our Futures Platform includes more information on housing for people with a learning disability and/or who are autistic.

If you have any questions or queries, or would like to find out more about our capital grant programme, please contact learning.disability@nhs.net