Autism Diagnosis

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) on securing the debate, and I am pleased to see so many people in the Chamber; it reflects the level of concern about the waiting times for autism diagnosis.

First, I welcome the efforts that clearly are being taken by Governments and local authorities to provide more support for children and adults with autism. Just last week, the doubling of the number of health visitors since 2010 was brought to my attention in my constituency. That has had benefits in supporting young families and, in particular, parents, when their child is not behaving as they expected. There are good things going on, but I want to talk briefly about the gap between the NICE guidelines on waiting times and what appears to be happening on the ground.

When I talk to parents in my constituency, it is clear that their experience does not involve a three-month waiting time. I have several accounts from parents who have experienced much longer waits. For example, one set of parents raised concerns when their child was four. That child is now 10 and they still do not have a diagnosis, despite many professionals seeing the child and indicating that they think that they are on the autism spectrum. In another family, the mother raised concerns when her son was 15 months old and the child was nearly four before she got a diagnosis. During that period, not only did the child regress and go, for instance, from talking to not talking and communicating to not communicating, but a lot of concern was raised about the mother’s mental health. Rather than her being given support to look after the child, it was all about whether she had mental health problems. She went for all the support that she could get, but it very much felt like the focus was not on supporting the child. I have a whole raft of such stories.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Whately]

We are very short of time, so I had best press on.

I draw on examples in part because we do not have regional data on waiting times. I asked the local clinical commissioning group and was told that it does not have easy access to those data, so I do not know what the waiting times are—I just have stories that make it clear that they are extraordinarily long. My first request is therefore for more transparency about the data, as well as addressing the problem of parents saying that they are waiting to wait—that is, that they are being passed from one list to another. Let us have transparency. Let us have people who are waiting getting seen sooner and then, following the diagnosis, let us have really good support services, because the story is very patchy in that area, too.