Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment has been made of the adequacy of (a) resources and (b) support available to women diagnosed with autism as adults.

The Government is committed to supporting women with neurodevelopmental conditions, including autistic women. All autistic people, including women diagnosis should have the right support in place, tailored to their individual needs, to live well in their communities.

In December 2025, the Government launched the Independent Review into the Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism. A central concern of the review is that access to recognition, diagnosis, and support is uneven.

This independent review will inform a new approach that reduces waiting times, improves the quality of care, and promotes prevention and early intervention. These goals and the review’s interim report support the Government’s special educational needs and disabilities reforms, which similarly aim to focus on identifying needs early, and providing early support to prevent needs escalating where possible.

The interim report, published in March 2026, found that access to diagnosis and support remains uneven, with some groups and individuals still under-identified, while others are entering diagnostic pathways in increasing numbers.

The next phase will examine inequalities in prevalence, diagnosis, support, and outcomes in more detail, including variation by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, and other characteristics.

The final report, due in the summer, will make recommendations on how the Government, the health system, and wider public services can respond to increasing demand for support more fairly and effectively so that people receive the right support, at the right time, in the right place.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, published in April 2026, sets out how the Government will make women’s voices and choices central in healthcare, transform NHS performance in services that matter most to women, support all women to live healthy, prosperous lives and create an approach to research and development that works for and empowers women.We will establish the women’s voices partnership, a new space for organisations representing women to inform national decision making. The partnership will focus on women most excluded from traditional services. We will help reduce variation in how GPs listen to and respond to women, using GP Patient Survey data in a quality improvement programme. We will also be appointing a new national director of patient experience, who will be overseeing collection of enhanced patient and carer feedback and ensuring greater transparency in the views and experience of women and girls.

A range of work is underway to improve access to and support within health and care services. We are rolling out mandatory training to ensure that health and care staff have the right knowledge and skills to provide safe and informed care, as per the requirement introduced in the Health and Care Act 2022. NHS England is also rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag so that information about the adjustments a person needs is recorded and care can be tailored appropriately.

Separately, we will develop and publish a revised cross-Government autism strategy. The current strategy will remain in effect until a revised strategy is published. This will be informed by all relevant evidence, reviews, and reports, including the recommendations from the House of Lords Autism Act 2009 Inquiry Committee report and the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD, and autism.