Autism
(asked on 14th April 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average time between being diagnosed with autism and receiving an official diagnostic report was in (a) England, (b) London and (c) Enfield in each of the last five years.
The data requested is not held centrally. However, some relevant information can be drawn from the Mental Health Service Data Set (MHSDS). The data only represents a partial picture of the numbers of people with an autism diagnosis and of waiting times.
The following table indicates the number of people in contact with mental health services with a new autism diagnosis for the past four years in England, London, and Enfield.
Reporting Period Start | Reporting Period End | Geographic Level | Geographic Name | Number of people with a new autism diagnosis in the reporting period. |
August 2018 | July 2019 | England | England | 11,310 |
August 2019 | July 2020 | England | England | 11,728 |
August 2020 | July 2021 | England | England | 12,072 |
August 2021 | July 2022 | England | England | 15,107 |
August 2018 | July 2019 | Local Authority | London | 2,185 |
August 2019 | July 2020 | Local Authority | London | 2,305 |
August 2020 | July 2021 | Local Authority | London | 2,375 |
August 2021 | July 2022 | Local Authority | London | 3,060 |
August 2018 | July 2019 | Local Authority | Enfield | 5 |
August 2019 | July 2020 | Local Authority | Enfield | 15 |
August 2020 | July 2021 | Local Authority | Enfield | 15 |
August 2021 | July 2022 | Local Authority | Enfield | 15 |
Additionally, the attached table summarises information for autistic people in contact with mental health services for the past four years in England, London, and Enfield.
We recognise that a lot of autism assessments for children are reported through the Community Services Data Set (CSDS), however it is not currently possible to correctly identify referrals for suspected autism in the CSDS and so we are unable to provide average wait times for this activity. Therefore, the current reported autism data comes from the MHSDS only.