Forensic psychiatric services are costly and highly restrictive for patients. Clinical experience and the limited research available indicate some patients stay for too long in these settings. A proportion of patients may, however, require long-term (potentially life-long) secure forensic psychiatric care but their needs may not be met by existing service provision designed for faster throughput.

We conducted a national, multi-centre, cross sectional study exploring the prevalence of long-stay and characteristics of long-stayers in high and medium secure forensic psychiatric care in England.

(1) Estimate the prevalence of long-stay in secure settings in England (length of stay over 5 years in medium secure care or 10 years in high secure care); (2) describe the characteristics, needs and care pathways of long-stay patients. Develop recommendations following the exploration of international models for this patient group.

We employed a mixed-methods approach including the analysis of administrative data, case file reviews, patient interviews, consultant questionnaires, interviews with clinicians and commissioners and a Delphi survey.

Twenty-five percent (n = 401) of our sample were experiencing long-stay. This patient group has a heterogeneous set of characteristics and needs relating to their diagnosis, offending history, risk and therapeutic need and have experienced a variety of care pathways through secure care.

We found a greater number of long-stay patients than originally estimated with a set of characteristics and needs that are arguably different to that of the general forensic population, therefore calling for a specific care pathway and service provision for this patient group with a greater focus on autonomy and quality of life.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.