Health Inequality: Autism and Learning Disabilities

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, we are very fortunate to have such a powerful advocate for the way in which to deal with this. On my own front, I have a young grandson who is on the autistic spectrum. We are also getting many more people with autism coming into the Motability scheme, so I am interested on two fronts. In advance of today’s gathering I spoke to the chair of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Educational and Child Psychology, Dr Vivian Hill. She also looks after our little boy. We have talked about the child, but it is the stress on the family that is immense. I see despair and sadness in my daughter—she says to me sometimes, “What is going to happen to him if I am not alive? Who’s going to look after him?” She brought up one issue on the health side, in particular. There is a lady—I will not give her name—who is now 35; she has a university degree, and works with Vivian at University College London interviewing people for the educational course. She has been in and out of hospital this year with various problems, to say the least. She said yesterday that she calculated that, for the first six months of the year, it has probably cost the health service £50,000—but they stopped the welfare attention that she used to have once a fortnight, which could have made a huge difference in understanding what the situation is. She was saying that there should be a way—in the same way that there is in collecting tax, for example—that a name flashes up immediately, in any ward anywhere throughout the country, if somebody is on the spectrum.

I also spoke yesterday to two fascinating headmasters in the Horsham area about money and so on. Many noble Lords have talked about how early it is possible to identify children on the spectrum. Everybody here feels that if you can get a child into a mainstream school, they have a chance of making it in life—a chance of acquiring self-esteem and of getting somewhere. We have not talked about money but really we are talking about money being made available to achieve that. If one looks at this from a taxpayer’s point of view, it is reckoned that if things were handled differently on the health service side, we would save a huge amount of money, although there is no point in my trying to guess the figures. Our little boy was diagnosed at the age of three. He was very fortunate and is getting through it very strongly. From the perspective of the taxpayer, the savings from early diagnosis—as a long-term investment—are immense.

In conclusion, as has been said, most of us in this Room are very fortunate. We must help these people, many of whom have brilliant minds and want to play their part in society. There has been enough talk.