Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of knowledge within mental health services to offer appropriate support to autistic people; and what steps he is taking to ensure more staff have received sufficient training to adequately support autistic people.

To inform the autism strategy published in July 2021, we launched a national call for evidence. This assessed the understanding of autism amongst health professionals, including those in mental health services. The findings indicated a need for improvement, therefore we are investing £1.5 million to develop training for staff working in adult inpatient mental health settings in 2021/22, in line with tier 3 of the ‘Core Capabilities Framework for supporting autistic people’. In addition, we have provided £1.4 million to trial the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in learning disability and autism, intended for all health and social care staff. A final trial evaluation report is due in spring 2022 which will inform plans for further deployment.