When the hospital closed in 1992, it was the consequence of new arrangements for the three groups of patients that remained. While at its peak Cherry Farm had many hundreds of patients, in latter years this number had dropped to below 400. Psychogeriatric and general adult psychiatric patients were either transferred to Wakari Hospital, or to residential care or supported accommodation in the community, people with intellectual disability moved to new lives in the community provided by a range of community agencies, one of which was Hawksbury Community Living Trust. The closure of Cherry Farm Hospital was a key milestone in the policy of successive governments to implement deinstitutionalisation. This process was completed nationwide in October 2006 with the closure of Kimberley Centre, Levin, the last large institution of its type.