Autism Diagnosis

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I will rattle through this to give others a better chance to speak. I should mention that I have been on Twitter, talking to someone in Scotland who is watching the debate with great interest because she has four children with autism. I congratulate the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) on obtaining the debate and congratulate everyone who has spoken so well and passionately during it.

In 2011, the Scottish National party Scottish Government launched a national strategy for autism, and they updated it in 2015. Some of the work done has included working with the Autism Achieve Alliance to produce action research that provides evidence to address waiting times for diagnosis. Things are not perfect in Scotland, but we have some advantages in being a smaller country. There are also plans to provide leadership for an improvement programme across NHS Scotland to improve diagnostic capacity, which we all agree is vital.

Scottish Autism worked in partnership with the Government to develop a web-based autism toolbox to improve accessibility to resource in schools across Scotland. Crucially, it also piloted one-stop shops for autism across Scotland. That is where I got involved. There was one in my constituency and, when the pilot programme ended, the local authority did not continue the work, so many families in my constituency were left bereft, with a much less comprehensive programme and much less support for families and people with autism.

I should pay tribute to the Minister for Childcare and Early Years in Scotland. He has a son with autism. He has done a lot of work, which has led to a number of things, such as Aberdeenshire Council’s national recognition for autism friendliness. He has piloted film and theatre programmes and shopping nights in shopping malls especially for people with autism, all of which help to improve the quality of life of those affected and their families.

In Scotland, as I have said, we have seen excellent work. We really want to make all people with autism live as independent lives as possible. As has been said repeatedly, diagnosis is vital for that. It gives such comfort to people with autism to know what is “wrong” with them. Once they know that, that allows them to see life in a different way, through their own eyes. I saw that when I taught in further education colleges.

The See Me initiative in Scotland has been important in showing people to look at people, not at conditions. I commend the Scottish Government for that initiative, on which they spend £1 million a year. That programme, which helps people to look at others and understand that they have issues—it is not that there is anything wrong but that they have difficulties in normal life—is mainly linked to mental health issues, but it helps people with autism as well.

There is still much work to be done, and the Scottish Government are trying to move towards better joined-up mental health. I know, and it has been said already in the debate, that autism is not a mental health issue, but it can foster mental health issues, so we need to look at how services in Scotland are joined up, and the transition from child to adult mental health issues.

Finally, I congratulate everyone who spoke so well and passionately in the debate. I would never have known anything about this subject had I not been forced to listen to constituents who lost their one-stop shop and the support that they so heavily depended on. They have other support, but they tell me that it is not nearly as good.