24th March 2023 | Channel 4
This personal and revealing film is by award-winning autistic filmmaker Richard Butchins. He meets four autistic inpatients and their families. Each one recounts deeply moving stories about their experiences in hospital. One young woman describes how she’s been locked up for most of her life, yet she’s only 25 years old. Others talk of how their long stretches in hospital have caused their health to significantly deteriorate instead of making them better, they tell of poor treatment and abuse by staff. In one case a young woman was raped by a worker in an NHS mental hospital.
Through videos made by patients secretly sent to the filmmaker this is a stark portrait of a healthcare system in crisis. A story of how thousands of inpatients with autism are being let down, often incarcerated for many years in unsuitable wards and hospitals across the UK.