In July 2021, the Government published its autism strategy, which sets out how it plans to support autistic adults and children in England over the next five years. The new strategy promises to tackle long diagnosis waiting times, it also covers mental health, employment, education, public understanding and the justice system.
The strategy promises to:
· Invest £10.5 million into finding new ways to reduce diagnosis waiting times for children and young people
· Invest £2.5 million to improve the quality of adult diagnostic and post-diagnostic pathways and diagnosis waiting times
· Increase public understanding of autism with a long-term, nationwide initiative
· Provide £18.5 million to prevent autistic people from falling into mental health crisis and £21 million to local authorities to help people in mental health hospitals back into the community
· Improve understanding by training education professionals, job centre staff and frontline staff in the justice system.
All the commitments total almost £75 million and represent the biggest investment in England’s autistic people ever.
You can read the full strategy at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-strategy-for-autistic-children-young-people-and-adults-2021-to-2026