Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Burghart and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

24. What steps he is taking to increase support for people with autism and learning disabilities.

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

Autism and learning disabilities are clinical priorities in the NHS long-term plan. We are committed to improving the quality of care provided to people with a learning disability or autism and to addressing the persistent health inequalities they face.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his active involvement in the all-party parliamentary groups on learning disability and on autism. Over the next three years, we will be testing and implementing the most effective ways to reduce waiting times for specialist services. We are developing guidance to support commissioners to develop the necessary services to support all autistic people, and we have launched a review of our autism strategy.

[Alex Burghart]

As a former governor of a school for children with autism, I thank the Minister for her response. It is well known that people with ASD suffer premature morbidity due to worse rates of heart disease, cancer and death through epilepsy. What is the Minister doing to ensure that fewer people with autism die early?

[Caroline Dinenage]

These are key elements of the NHS long-term plan, and we will shortly start consulting on mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and social care staff. We will work to improve uptake of the existing annual health checks for people with learning disabilities and will pilot the introduction of specific health checks for autistic people.