Lyall & Kelly (Psychiatric Bulletin, August 2007, 31, ) looked at patterns of admission for people with learning disability to specialist psychiatric beds and highlighted the lack of community resources as a cause of delayed discharge. We performed a survey of patterns of admission and characteristics of patients admitted to a 12-bedded specialist learning disability unit. This unit serves a population of 380 000. Thirty-six people were admitted over a period of 2 years and accounted for 42 admissions; 25 patients (69%) had mild, 5 (14%) moderate and 6 (17%) severe learning disability. Sixteen (38%) admissions were regarded as having delayed discharges. The mean duration of admission was 210 days but when the duration of delayed discharge was excluded this dropped to 103 days. Our experience suggests that a lack of community resources leading to delayed discharges might be more widespread.