National 5 yr Autism Strategy 2021 - 2026
The autism strategy sets out how the Government plans to support autistic adults and children in England over the next five years.
The strategy promises to:
- invest £10.5 million into finding new ways to reduce autism 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 those discharged from inpatient units back into the community.
- improve understanding of autism 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. However, they only account for the first year of the strategy – we are expecting more for 2022-26.
You can read more by clicking this link.