Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Departments monitors the number of neuro-developmental conditions confirmed by NHS England by region.

The term neurodevelopmental condition encompasses a wide range of conditions. The majority of services for neurodevelopmental conditions are commissioned locally by integrated care boards (ICBs). There is no singular dataset which provides data on the number of all neurodevelopmental conditions by region. There are, however, some datasets which provide useful information nationally and locally on the numbers of people being referred for assessments or diagnosed with specific neurodevelopmental conditions, to support local service commissioning and provision. This includes the autism waiting times statistics, the Assuring Transformation data collection, the Mental Health Services Data Set, Community Services Data Set, and the Commissioning Data Sets. There is also an indicator in the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service monthly publication which is a count of all patients that have a diagnosis of autism in their general practice (GP) records, by each GP.

No assessment has been made of NHS England’s ability to categorise neurodevelopmental conditions in accordance with the Equality Act 2010. It is for individual National Health Service organisations, including NHS trusts and ICBs, to comply with the Equality Act 2010, guidance for which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance

The act defines disability as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Further information can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/definition-of-disability-under-equality-act-2010

Patients with neurodevelopmental conditions are not categorised by NHS England as to whether they meet the definition of disabled under the Equality Act 2010, and nor does the act require this.