Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what spending is allocated across all departments to supporting individuals who are defined by themselves or others as neurodiverse.

This specific data is not held centrally. The 2025 Spending Review prioritised health, with record investment in the health and social care system. The Spending Review announced that annual National Health Service day-to-day spending will increase by £29 billion in real terms, a £53 billion cash increase, by 2028/29 compared to 2023/24. This will take the NHS resource budget to £226 billion by 2028/29, the equivalent to a 3% average annual real terms growth rate over the Spending Review period.

However, the Government has been clear that this investment must come with reform. We will completely reorient the NHS’s operating model, so it is focussed on the most important things, better outcomes for patients.

NHS England is responsible for determining allocations of financial resources to integrated care boards (ICBs). Funding for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism assessments are included within NHS England’s financial allocations to ICBs. The process of setting allocations is informed by the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, an independent committee that provides advice to NHS England on setting the target formula which impacts how allocations are distributed over time. ICB allocations for 2026/27 to 2028/29 were published on 17 November 2025 and are available on the NHS England website.

Through the Medium-term planning framework, published 24 October, NHS England has set clear expectations for local ICBs and trusts to improve access, experience, and outcomes for autism and ADHD services over the next three years, focusing on improving quality and productivity.

On Monday 23 February, the Government published the Schools White Paper, Every child achieving and thriving, and a consultation document on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms, with both documents being available on the GOV.UK website. SEND reforms begin with significant upfront investment, joint planning, and a lead in period to build system capacity ahead of legislation. As part of these reforms, £4 billion is being invested over the next three years to make schools more inclusive, including £1.8 billion over three years for the new Experts at Hand offer which will bring health and education professionals into schools to upskill education staff and enable earlier intervention.

The Experts at Hand offer builds on the emerging evidence from programmes such as Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools, which show the benefits of embedding health and other specialist professionals in mainstream settings to support settings to be more inclusive and to de-escalate need.