Why the HCD Genesis Model Must Lead the Future of Section 117 Discharge

When you’ve worked in this sector long enough, you stop seeing “the system” as a set of policies and structures. 
You start seeing it as people, people trying to live meaningful lives, and families trying to hold onto hope. 
And you also see, painfully, where the system stops working for them.
Across England, a very specific group of people with Autism and complex needs are living in Medium and Low Secure Units and Specialist Rehabilitation Units, even though they no longer need to be there. 

Many have been ready for discharge for years. 
Some, unbelievably, for decades.

Not because of clinical need.
Not because of risk.
But because no pathway has existed that truly matches people's needs.

This isn’t a broad failure of social care or mental health services.

It’s a precise gap affecting over 2,000 people that has never been appropriately addressed.

And that gap is what led me to create the HCD Genesis Model.

Designing a Precision Pathway for a Forgotten Group

For a long time, the sector has relied on generalised community support models, hoping they would stretch far enough to accommodate complex cases. 
But people with Autism, especially those who have been detained under the Mental Health Act, often don’t fit into these assumptions.

They are people who are:

• Restricted or under DoLS

• Trapped in stalled discharge plans

• Living in environments that no longer meet people’s clinical needs

• Assessed as “ready to leave” but unable to because no personalised alternative exists

People’s needs are specific, not theoretical.

The needs of people are real, not abstract. And the impact of getting it wrong is profound, for them, for their families, and for the system.

Genesis was created to offer a safe, evidence-based, autism-specific route home.

A System on the Brink of Change

“We are entering a moment of major legal and cultural shift.”

A bill currently progressing through Parliament is seeking to make it unlawful to detain people with Autism in secure units if they do not meet the threshold for that level of restriction.

It’s a long-overdue correction.

More importantly, it's a recognition of something families have known for years:
If someone doesn’t need to be locked away, they shouldn’t be.
But legislation alone does not create pathways.
Someone has to build them.

And that’s where I believe organisations like ours must step up, not because we want to “grow a service”, but because the absence of a pathway is the very reason people are stuck.

The Moment I Realised We Could Do More

In March 2025, I read a BBC article and listened to the accompanying radio interview about people who had been held in secure units for most of their adult lives. 

I had also viewed a TV programme featuring Dr Salim Razak, in which he highlighted people with Autism and complex needs who were ready for discharge home.
Still, no suitable service was available to them.

It stayed with me in a way I couldn’t ignore.

It made me think: We can do something here. We should do something here.

As I’ve said to families since:

“I want to change the lives of these people.
We are going to bring them home.”

“If you are a family member, know this: there is now a team that can make it happen, and I will buy the coffee and show you exactly how.”

(Read the article: https://homecaredirect.co.uk/2025/03/28/locked-up-for-45-years/)

That moment became the starting point for Genesis.

Families Deserve to Hear This Clearly: Coming Home Is Now Possible

For years, families have been told some version of the same message:

“There's no provider.”
“No community option is safe enough.”
“Your loved one has to stay where they are.”

Genesis exists to challenge and change this narrative.

Because the truth is:

“There are over 2,000 people in secure units today who should not be there.
People’s families deserve to know that there is now a clear, lawful, safe route home, and Genesis can deliver it.”

This isn’t about selling a programme.
It’s about restoring something the system has quietly eroded:
Hope, choice, and a pathway home.

If your loved one is stuck, Genesis exists for them.

If someone you care about is:

• In a Medium Secure Unit

• In a Low Secure Unit

• In a Specialist Rehabilitation Units

• Held long-term under DoLS

• Sectioned under the Mental Health Act, waiting for discharge

There is a route forward.

We built Genesis precisely for people with Autism and complex needs whose lives have been on pause for far too long.

We cannot undo the years already lost, but we can change the years ahead.

For anyone who needs this model, families, commissioners, and clinicians, our door is open.

Not as a sales pitch, but as a genuine commitment to doing what should have been possible all along: helping people come home safely.

Learn more: https://homecaredirect.co.uk/genesis-model-nhs/