Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many assessors trained and qualified in autism will work in each of the five regions under the Department for Work and Pension's Health Assessment Advisory Service.

The department and the Health Assessment Advisory Service (HAAS) are fully committed to supporting those with mental health conditions.

All health professionals (HPs) within the five regions of HAAS are fully qualified in their health discipline and have passed strict recruitment and experience criteria. They must also be registered with a relevant regulatory body such as the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Health and Care Professions Council or European Economic Area equivalent. The department has not specified that HAAS employ HPs who are specialists in specific conditions or impairments. Instead, the focus is on ensuring they are experts in disability analysis, focusing on the effects of health conditions and impairments on the claimant’s daily life.

All HPs receive comprehensive training in the functional assessment of mental health conditions and disabilities, including Autism. From 09 September 2024 the educational material for all HAAS HPs was provided by DWP. As part of our review, we identified best practice in the NHS and have implemented the Oliver McGowan training as part of the mandatory training requirements for every HP. This training is recognised to be of significant value to HPs in ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to provide safe, informed, and compassionate assessments to claimants with autism and learning disabilities. This is in addition to our comprehensive education programme for HPs.

Following the completion of core training to undertake the role, HPs will engage in an annual training programme, and HAAS has been provided with materials (such as Continual Professional Development modules) to support the development of their HPs where learning needs are identified. This approach ensures that both service wide and individual training needs are met and will be of benefit to those with neurodiversity where applicable.