Agenda item

Report and Presentation of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services and the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services, Durham County Council.

The Board received a joint report of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services, Durham County Council and the Corporate Director of Children and Young people’s Services, Durham County Council that provided an update as to progress following the refresh of ‘Think Autism in County Durham’; Autism Strategy for Children, Young People and Adults into an updated strategy for 2023-2026.  The report had been presented to Children and Adults’ management groups prior to the Health and Wellbeing Board along with the finalised strategy (for copy see file of minutes).

T Reed, Strategic Commissioning Manager and L Mulholland, Cognition Learning and Autism Team Leader gave a presentation on the refreshed ‘Think Autism in County Durham’ Autism Strategy for Children, Young People and Adults 2023-2026.  The original strategy had been launched in April 2019 with the refreshed strategy now combining all age groups.

Councillor R Bell understood that it was prevalent that Autism diagnoses had increased with people being diagnosed later in life after leading successful lives.  He queried if autism was over diagnosed and what was proposed to be done once a diagnosis was given.

L Mulholland responded that the figures had been taken from ONS data for Autism.  She felt that Autism was actually underrepresented in the statistics as she knew there were a number of females that had not been diagnosed and therefore not captured in the data. 

T Reed thought that it was an interesting point that autism diagnosis had increased with some people who had received support and those who had not. She stated that the autism strategy fitted into the CDT approach and communication was key. 

L Mulholland noted that the object was to help people with high levels of autism to access services they required.  Collaborative working to talk to people to try to unblock barriers was crucial.

Councillor Bell asked if there were any lessons learnt from Covid and what was affected by the pandemic.

L Mulholland explained that the Steering Group had continued to meet during Covid that looked at what were the worst areas and prioritised access to connect people virtually.  She had found that for some people the restrictions of lockdown were helpful as they had imposed clear rules but others had found the isolation hard.

Councillor Henderson questioned whether there was enough support in schools and colleges especially since there were 35 new referrals made every month and there was 481 days wait for children and young people for an assessment.

T Reed confirmed that work had been carried out with schools to help them to understand pupils with autism better.  There was a project in North Durham that worked together with schools to meet the needs of children and young people before a diagnosis was given. CDT was drawn together from views from people with Autism to inform and influence on how to get the right support.  Work was ongoing to redesign support within services to help people with Autism live full lives.  CDT also made services more inclusive for children and young people and adults.  The Durham Community Action was to be more involved.

M Laing queried if accommodation was also addressed for people with autism. 

L Mulholland responded that accommodation may need to be specific to people who had different needs.  In general accommodation may be a shared house with colleagues. In other cases the design and layout may need to be adapted for significant needs.  Special accommodation was planned within commissioning within the social care programme.

M Laing questioned whether the average waiting list across England was higher or lower than Durham.

L Mulholland affirmed that the waiting list was high but not in comparison to rest of England.  It sat under the pathway for CAMHS.  Work had been undertaken for a triage panel that was multiagency led that considered 205 referrals every month to sign post to support. 

S Burns, Director of place/head of integrated commissioning stated that the ICB for Durham had the longest waiting list that was not acceptable and was not good enough for Children and Young People.  She acknowledged it was a complicated challenge. She noted that waiting times increased during the pandemic.

M Graham declared that there was a need for more improvement and communication in schools.  There was an expectation that a child or young person would require a diagnosis first before they received treatment.  He urged that the message was very important especially post diagnoses where additional services may be required to be established.

T Reed noted that children and young people realistically waited a long time to get diagnosed. It was felt that there was a requirement that support should be put in place before diagnosis that could be helped through social communication.

M Laing queried the support available in the transition for children and young people when they changed year groups in schools or went from primary to secondary school as he did not want people not to get support until they were diagnosed.

M Stenton contemplated that communication was key and thought that the message should be conveyed and in the public eye before Autism week in April 2024.

L Mulholland confirmed that preparations were in place to present the proposal to Cabinet with the expectation to launch the strategy in January 2024 to then plan the Children and Young People’s version.

M Stenton thought discussions should take place with Councillor Henderson and Councillor Bell regarding communications for Cabinet.

Resolved:

That the findings were agreed in the report and the updated strategy prior its progression to Cabinet on 15 November 2023.