290% increase in North East children awaiting first autism assessment
Figures show North East has most significant rise in autism assessment waiting times.
Last updated 27th Sep 2024
New research from Althea Soft reveals that children across the North East have experienced the biggest rise nationally in autism assessment waiting times.
According to NHS data, children in the region are waiting 13-weeks or more for their first autism appointment.
In 2020, 730 children faced long waits, but by 2024 this number increased to 2,850.
That is a 290% increase over the last 4-years.
Ella Bains is a Mum from County Durham with twin boys on the autism assessment waiting list.
She said: "Those needs don't go away, or come back, or get stronger, or disappear, according to where that person is on the assessment pathway.
"That assessment pathway and where that person sits on that assessment pathway has nothing to do with their clinical needs. They're still there, they're still evident, they are still very much a big deal for that person and not accommodating can be very disabling.
"We're really lucky that the boys are somewhere where actually the school get it and put in adaptive strategies and they completely understand. But I do hear of a lot of children elsewhere who don't experience that and are stuck on a waiting list that lasts years.
"They really need those supportive strategies from the school, but because they don't have a diagnosis that this then a barrier to getting those adaptive strategies in place.
It breaks my heart because actually those adaptive strategies could help that student and they could help a lot of other students around that person as well."