Thank you for your interest in this story
To continue reading this article, subscribe to the Stray Ferret for as little as £1 a week
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
19
Dec
Harrogate hospital struggling to cope with autism demand
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust is struggling to cope with rising autism diagnosis demand for children, says its chief executive.
The trust currently provides autism assessments for children and young people aged up to 19 years old.
The service aims to give patients a diagnosis in order for families to get access to the right support.
But trust chief executive Jonathan Coulter told the Stray Ferret demand for the service has “grown significantly” over the last decade.
He said at one stage the trust was completing 40 assessments a month. However, demand has now far outstripped that figure.
Mr Coulter said:
There has been a growth in the last five to 10 years and we haven’t kept up in money or people to do that. We need to find a solution because it is so important for those children and families to get that diagnosis. They can’t do anything without a diagnosis.
Children can be referred for an autism assessment by families submitting a form to the trust.
According to NHS England figures, in the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board area, 6,270 patients were waiting for an autism assessment as of September 2024, up from 5,290 last year.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that people referred for an autism assessment should be seen within 13 weeks.
However, according to the Harrogate trust's website, a new referral made in December 2024 would now be expected to wait up to 40 months.
Mr Coulter said funding and staffing were key barriers.
He added that the trust was in discussions with NHS North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, which commissions the service, on how to tackle the problem.
He said:
It’s a matter of have we got the funding to employ the staff and, if we did, have we got enough staff to be able to employ to do some of the extra demand which has grown.
There are a few things we are talking about with partners around how we address this growing need, because over the last five to 10 years the demand for autism assessments has grown significantly. We haven’t kept up with that demand.
Click here to gift someone a Stray Ferret subscription today.
0