PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Mental Health Services: Children and Young People (30 January 2023)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time was between referral and first assessment for autism at Stockport Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in the latest period for which data is available.

Asked by:
Navendu Mishra (Labour)

Site level data on autism diagnosis waiting times is not currently available.

The Mental Health Services Data Set does, however, hold data concerning autism diagnoses made by mental health organisations at sub-integrated care board (ICB) level. For “NHS Greater Manchester ICB - 01W", the sub-ICB which covers Stockport, as of September 2022 there were 15 patients aged 0 to 17 with an open suspected autism referral. Of these, 5 had had no contact yet and 5 had had a first contact more than 13 weeks after referral.

NHS England are working with local systems to improve data quality and completeness, as well as developing a framework to support ICBs to commission best practice autism diagnostic pathways.

Answered by:
Maria Caulfield (Conservative)
3 February 2023