Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the autism referral to treatment pathway announced in the Five Year Forward View on Mental Health is being developed; and for what reasons it was not included in NHS England's implementation plan for the Five Year Forward View.

NHS England’s Implementation Plan for the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health was published in July 2016. It described the national programme of work that will be taken forward to deliver the recommendations of the Mental Health Task Force. This will include work to develop an evidence based treatment pathway for people who have co-occurring mental health needs and neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism. In parallel, the Department plans to work with partners to improve tracking of referral to assessment times for an autism diagnosis.