Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to invest in evidence-based training, guidance and resources to improve health and education professionals' understanding of neurodevelopmental conditions and support neurodivergent children and adults.

Under the Health and Care Act 2022, from 1 July 2022, all providers registered with the Care Quality Commission must ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role. This will ensure staff have the right confidence, knowledge, and skills to provide safe and informed care. To guide providers on how to meet the statutory training requirement, a Code of Practice was published and laid in Parliament, becoming final on 6 September 2025. To support this, the Government is rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism to the health and adult social care workforce.

NHS England has also published guidance and operational frameworks to improve the quality of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) services, including guidance to support clinicians and services in providing appropriate assessment, diagnosis, and care. The Medium-Term Planning Framework sets clear expectations for integrated care boards (ICBs) and providers to improve access to services and the quality of assessments by implementing existing and new guidance, as published.

As part of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms, we are investing approximately £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and ICBs, to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer. This offer is designed to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings by providing access to support from key services and health and specialist education practitioners, including speech and language therapists and support workers or assistants, occupational therapists and support workers or assistants, educational psychologists and trainees, and specialist teachers, both local authority-based and those based in specialist or alternative provision settings.

We are also investing over £40 million in the specialist workforce, including £26 million to train more educational psychologists and £15 million to support more speech and language therapists to work in education settings. This new offer is designed to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings so that more specialist expertise can be accessed by mainstream settings to support all children and young people thrive, including those with SEND.

In December 2025, the Government launched an Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism. This review will inform a new approach that reduces waiting times, improves the quality of care, and promotes prevention and early intervention. The review’s final report is due to be published in the summer.