Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department plans to introduce a GP registry for autism to allow the collection of population-level data.

General practitioners already maintain a register of people with learning disabilities which may include patients on their lists who also have autism where this has been diagnosed. The Royal College of General Practitioners’ Autism Initiative, which is part funded by the Department, is currently looking at the idea of an autism indicator in general practice. This work is at an early stage.

NHS England has been working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to develop the Mental Health Services Data Set. This mandatory data set will include provision for the diagnosis of autism to be recorded. The data will be published and available for everyone to use to support and develop services based on health outcomes.