Hello, I just wanted to tell a little of my son's story. He is 22 and has autism. Since he was 16 he has been in and out of various hospitals, some close by and others miles away. He recently spent 10 months in a psychiatric intensive care unit while a more suitable placement was found. After a lot of faffing around he was finally placed in an autistic specific unit within a medium secure hospital at the end of July. This has been a disaster. It is 150 miles away, it is little more than an annexe off another ward, it is within a forensic hospital surrounded by a huge perimeter fence. My son is quite rightly angry and bewildered. He has been secluded on numerous occasions, he has things he needs taken away from him, he often feels desperate and has meltdowns. The last ctr concluded that he had been inappropriately placed, the hospital managers meeting said the same but there is nowhere else he can be moved to. Luckily we are getting a lot of help drawing up a service plan for a community placement but this will take time. We also have a solicitor who is helping our son with a tribunal to get off his section. We have a lot we can be positive about but day to day we still have the constant worry of knowing our son is locked away and miles from us.

Hi, we are in Gloucestershire and he has been moved to South Yorkshire.

Thanks Isabelle, yes he has had a ctr and has another coming up soon when we hope many of the recommendations will have been auctioned.

He is going to be assessed by a local provider soon and we have very good support from an independent supporter who is putting together a service plan. This will all take time as it will have to be very carefully tailored to meet his needs but it's a start.

Yes Jules, there is a plan to get him back and we are lucky enough to have an independent supporter helping us with this. I really appreciate this forum and I'm sure I'll be using it a lot over the coming months!