Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to raise awareness of the signs of autism in adults.

The Government is committed to supporting people with neurodevelopmental conditions, including autistic people, and we are taking action to increase awareness and understanding of autism across the health and social care sector, education, and employment.

The Health and Care Act 2022 requires that, from 1 July 2022, health and care providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) must ensure their staff receive specific training on autism appropriate to their role. This will ensure that health and care staff have the right knowledge and skills to provide safe and appropriate care for autistic people. As part of this, significant progress has been made to roll out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism which has been designed and is delivered alongside people with lived experience. Over three million people have now completed the e-learning component of the training and the statutory Code of Practice for this training has been published.

NHS England has also taken action to increase understanding of autism within mental health services specifically by supporting the transition of the National Autism Trainer Programme in mental health services to become embedded 'business as usual' training. 5,000 trainers have been trained who will be cascading the training to teams across mental health services, residential special schools and colleges, and youth justice settings. NHS England also commissioned the Royal College of Psychiatrists to deliver the National Autism Training Programme for Psychiatrists, with over 300 psychiatrists trained in the past three years.

Work is also underway to raise awareness of autism in education settings. The Schools White Paper, Every child achieving and thriving, and consultation on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms published on 23 February outline plans to increase education staff understanding of SEND, including autism, through improved training and better access to experts, building on the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme. The Every child achieving and thriving White Paper is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/every-child-achieving-and-thriving

The Government is also committed to raising awareness of all forms of neurodiversity, including autism, in the workplace and the Department for Work and Pensions launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity in January 2025 to advise on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work.

Government responsibility for delivering research into autism is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation, which includes the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The MRC generally focusses on early biomedical research, including cellular and animal models, while the NIHR funds translational and applied research, where treatments and interventions are tested in real world populations and health and care settings. An example of NIHR investment in autism research is the £2.8 million SAFE trial, which aims to develop interventions to better support and improve the wellbeing of families of autistic children. As well as funding research itself, the Department of Health and Social Care invests significantly in research expertise and capacity, specialist facilities, support services, and collaborations to support and deliver research in England, known as NIHR infrastructure. This includes the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, which has supported research into the brain signalling of individuals with autism to help develop a range of targeted medicine choices.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including autism.