Autism: Diagnosis
(asked on 25th April 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much her Department spent on autism assessments in each of the last five years; how much funding her Department has allocated to autism assessments in each of the next three years; and what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of that funding in meeting the target waiting time for such an assessment.
Answered by
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Information on the total spend on autism assessments is not held centrally. NHS England is responsible for funding allocations to integrated care boards (ICBs), which are responsible for commissioning services using these core allocations to meet the needs of their local populations, including autism assessment services. The following table shows the total baseline expenditure in ICBs for learning disability and autism services over the last five years, disaggregated for autism services where possible:
| Learning disability | Autism services | Unseparated learning disability and autism services | Total |
2019/20 | N/A | N/A | £1,809,200,000 | £1,809,200,000 |
2020/21 | N/A | N/A | £2,285,600,000 | £2,285,600,000 |
2021/22 | £85,800,000 | £3,700,000 | £2,268,300,000 | £2,357,900,000 |
2022/23 | £625,800,000 | £27,100,000 | £1,928,800,000 | £2,581,700,000 |
2023/24 | £926,000,000 | £47,100,000 | £1,928,800,000 | £2,904,600,000 |
In addition, specific funding has been allocated to ICBs in 2023/4 and 2024/25 from the Service Development Funding, to improve autism assessment waiting lists and pathways. The following table shows information on the additional national funding allocated to ICBs by NHS England, over each of the last five years, to improve autism assessment waiting lists and pathways:
| Service Development Funding via the NHS Long Term Plan Transformation Funding | Spending Review 2021 via the COVID-19 Recovery Fund | Total funding for autism assessment pathways |
2019/20 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
2020/21 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
2021/22 | £2,500,000 | £14,500,000 | £17,000,000 |
2022/23 | £5,000,000 | N/A | £5,000,000 |
2023/24 | £4,200,000 | N/A | £4,200,000 |
2024/25 | £4,300,000 | N/A | £4,300,000 |
Notes:
- the in-year pay uplift for 2023/24 is not reflected in the table;
- the service development funding allocations shown in the table are in addition to the ICBs core funding allocations.
The NHS Operational and Planning Guidance 2024/25 asks local systems to improve autism assessment pathways, through implementation of the NHS England autism assessment national framework. Allocations from 2025/26 onwards are subject to future decisions on spending. Further information on the operational and planning guidance and national framework is available respectively at the following links:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/autism-diagnosis-and-operational-guidance/
A specific assessment of the adequacy of funding in meeting the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s waiting time standard for autism assessments has not been made. However, autism waiting times statistics are published on a quarterly basis. The total number of people with an open referral, where the diagnosis not yet completed, for suspected autism has increased by 47%, from 117,032 in December 2022 to 172,022 in December 2023. In December 2023, it was estimated that only 5.9% of patients whose referrals have been open in the system for at least 13 weeks received their first contact appointment within 13 weeks.