Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has accepted the Care Quality Commission’s call to review the cases of the 2,245 patients held in special wards for people with autism and learning disabilities

A boy with autism has been locked for more than a year in a padded room in a psychiatric hospital where he sits naked under a blanket, an inquiry into the “failing” system of care for vulnerable patients has found.

The child, referred to as Adam, which is not his real name, has one book held up to a window as his only education and spends much of his time banging his head on the wall, inspectors from the Care Quality Commission found.

Hospital staff communicate with him by shouting through a window or restrain him by holding his arms whenever he has contact with other people or he wants to visit a lounge next door, which is not padded. Adam left his seclusion room,