Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on securing this important debate and on his well informed and persuasive speech. It is encouraging that the debate is so well attended and that it is informed by the personal experience of parents of children with autism.

Like other hon. Members I have received a number of representations from constituents in support of the National Autistic Society “You Need to Know” campaign. I applaud the work of the society and its supporters in raising the profile of the needs of children and young people with autism and of the importance of ensuring that there is proper diagnosis and support from CAMHS, GPs and other health professionals for the 70% of children with autism who also have mental health issues.

My hon. Friend set out both the range of difficulties that young people face as they go through life and the opportunities that are opened up by the right skilled help. I want to raise a couple of points that I think are important. The first is the interaction between autism and mental health and the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training. An interesting Audit Commission report on re-engaging young people—published today, coincidentally—includes an analysis of the characteristics of young people in the NEET category, and shows for example that whereas young people with either learning difficulties and disabilities or one or more special educational needs statements comprise 10% of all young people, they comprise 23% of young people who are not in education, employment or training for six months or more. It does not give figures specifically on those with autism, but the proportion will be significant—not counting, of course, those who have not been properly diagnosed. That is an important issue.

One of the key recommendations of the Audit Commission report is that local councils, especially with the transfer of 16-19 funding, and all the existing and coming pressures on local budgets, need to understand the nature of their local NEET population and to target their support appropriately. I urge that understanding the extent of autism and mental health difficulties among those young people should be a key part of the analysis and of the supportive action that needs to be provided by health, education and training professionals.

Another point that I would like to stress follows from the comments of the hon. Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland): it is the importance of improving and joining up support for young people with autism as they move into adulthood, which is understandably a particularly stressful time for the individuals concerned and their parents. Certainly in my area in Oxford, although there is still some way to go, there have been welcome improvements in support for children and young people in education. Parents have praised to me the work done by Oxford and Cherwell Valley further education college. However, as youngsters become adults it can be an especially uncertain time, when the prospects for work, other meaningful activity, further training, social relationships and housing become problematic, and their parents are getting older. There needs to be a better joined-up approach between health, social services and housing providers so that there is a coherent system of support. As the Audit Commission report recommends, there is a need for better co-ordination between Connexions and Jobcentre Plus, and better handover arrangements as people move forward and look to the possibilities of work.

At a time when local council budgets face huge cuts, it is all the more important that we should speak up for the needs of those young people, which have so often been misunderstood and neglected in the past. They must not be marginalised in the battles for funding ahead. One crucial point from the Audit Commission report is that early intervention and the right early support not only make a huge difference to people’s quality of life, but, as the hon. Member for South Swindon said, can save big sums of public money in the long run. The report illustrates that fact by contrasting the example of a young man with Asperger’s who gets the right support and ends up with a life in work, and one who does not, and ends up with a life on benefits.

I would be grateful if the Minister let us know what guidance and support will be given to local councils, health authorities and others on relevant matters so that young people with autism and their families can face the future with more confidence, and in particular what action the Government will take to ensure that CAMHS and adult mental health teams work together so that there is the right continuing support.