“At the time, I had no support,” said Becky, a 46-year-old charity worker. “In a way, Sofia calling in the ambulance was a saving grace for us.”
Her 14-year-old daughter first called the emergency services when she was 13, not because she was in physical danger, but because she has autism and was in extreme distress during a crisis. According to her mother, Sofia has required emergency care to cope with multiple crises over the years.
NHS data analysed by the Positive Support Group (PSG) found that there were more than 20,000 episodes where children with autism were admitted to and discharged from emergency hospital care on the same day in 2023-24 — a 86 per cent increase since 2019-20, according to the behavioural health group.
“I think going into hospital was overwhelming, definitely. She has very high sensory needs, she cannot be around noise,” said her mother, who requested to only use her first name.
“She was put in a room on her own, and it was very quiet. She realised that, ‘okay, even in hospital I’m not going to get fixed, am I? And I can go in and get a bandage or an injection, it’s more deeper than that’.”
In the report, PSG said that it worked with one child who had spent more than 120 days in hospital with “no medical need” to be in such care and warned that a lack of community support and cuts to funding were driving this surge in hospitalisations.
It said that the rise in emergency admissions for autistic children was placing “immense pressure” on NHS services, and that discharging children with additional needs from hospital could be “difficult due to their complex needs”.
Sarah Wakeling, the chief executive of PSG, said: “These worrying figures underline the growing pressure on children’s mental health services and the urgent need to rethink how we provide support for autistic children and their families. Rising emergency admissions reflect the gaps in early intervention, specialist education, and community-based mental health care.”
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Figures from the NHS Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity, analysed by the group, found that the number of times children with autism received emergency care was 20,839 in 2023-2024, up from 11,197 in 2019-2020.
General hospital admissions to A&E remained more or less consistent during this period at 6.5 million admissions, highlighting a “worrying” trend for autistic children and their families.
“Our work shows that when the right support is in place at the right time, outcomes improve, and hospital admissions fall. Furthermore, with the right services, we can ensure that people are not staying in high-cost hospital settings any longer than they medically need to,” Wakeling added.
Sofia, who is a twin and one of five siblings, was in hospital for two days due to a mental health assessment. Before receiving support from PSG, she would “take out her misunderstandings” on her siblings because she struggled to communicate her needs.
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The right support has been life-changing for the family, who were referred to PSG while in hospital. “I didn’t have a child and have a manual … so I had to learn,” Becky explained. “Then PSG came in, and it’s like, wow, actually, if more of this was around for parents like myself… I feel like the help that we’ve received has really changed so much.”
“There’s been a lot of changes in all our relationships. With me, it helped me to understand, to communicate better. I was able to then pass that on to my other children as well.”
Sofia had one-to-one sessions. Her mother said: “She had a safe space. She would come home, meet with them, and she was able to talk about the way her week had been … It was emotional regulation because she didn’t know how to express herself in a positive way.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “For too long, autistic children and young people have been let down by a broken NHS.
“Each regional NHS board is expected to have an executive lead on autism and learning disability to help support equal access to care and improve health outcomes for autistic people across their services.
“As part of this government’s plan to shift care out of hospitals and into the community, we will invest £26 million in new community crisis centres, supporting patients by giving them access to care closer to home.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “We recognise, and research shows, that autistic children and young people are more likely to experience mental health crisis or emergency and that staying in a hospital can be particularly difficult because of environmental and sensory challenges.
“We support [integrated care boards] to identify those at risk and prevent admissions by arranging crisis community care where possible — we remain committed to avoiding unnecessary hospital stays for autistic children and young people, and those with a learning disability.”
