Agenda item

The Director of Care Services and Commissioning, Adult Social Care, submits a report relating to the 2016 Adult Autism Self-Assessment – Evaluation Progress in Local Authorities along with the Partner Agencies. The Leicester Leicestershire and Rutland Autism Strategy 2014-2019 Delivery Action Plan is also attached.

The Commission is asked to:

1)    accept and validate the Autism Self–Assessment submission, and

2)    Support the recommendations for future work to ensure the Council along with partner agencies are able to meet their legal responsibilities and raise standards.

The Director for Care Services and Commissioning submitted a report relating to the 2016 Adult Autism Self-Assessment, evaluation progress in Local Authorities along with partner agencies.

The Lead Commissioner for Mental Health and Learning Disability presented the report, and the Chair invited questions and comments from Members.

A Member commented that in some communities, there was a belief that autism was linked to witchcraft and people resorted to the use of faith healers. Concerns were expressed that this resulted in harm to the person with autism. It was a serious condition and more action was needed to raise awareness.   The Lead Commissioner responded that one of the areas identified in the self-assessment, was that more work needed to be undertaken with some ethnic groups and communities to further raise awareness of the condition. This work was included on the Action Plan, however the Council needed to work with partners as they could not deliver the Plan on their own.

Members asked whether there would be extra funding from the Government to help people with autism.  The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care responded that this was highly unlikely to happen given the current pressures on local government, health and social care funding.

In response to a question, the Lead Commissioner explained that statistics appeared to demonstrate that the national prevalence of autism was around 1 in a 100 people. She did not have to hand the specific prevalence rate for Leicester but would circulate that figure to Members.

Members discussed the transition process for children with autism as they grew into adulthood. The Lead Commissioner explained that there was a transition team to work with young people, with disabilities and their families. It was noted that the effectiveness of the transition process was reliant on good communication, partnership working and early identification of individuals.  The Strategic Director stated that transition legally took place when the young person turned 18 years of age. However, it was very advantageous to start the transition planning process earlier, ideally with conversations taking place when the young person was around 14 years of age.

 A Member stated that she was pleased to hear about the transition process for young people, but commented that it could be difficult for parents when their legal parental responsibility ended once their child turned 18 years of age. .A suggestion was made that the issue of transition should be referred to the Children, Young People and Schools (CYPS) Scrutiny Commission. The Strategic Director commented that he would be bringing a report to the Deputy City Mayor on transition, and he had already had discussions and initial agreement with the Strategic Director of Children Services about how the two departments could improve the current transition processes.   A suggestion was made that it might be helpful if the Adult Social Care and the CYPS Scrutiny Commissions held a joint meeting to discuss transition arrangements, and subject to agreement from the Chair of CYPS, this meeting could ideally take place early in May 2017.

A request was made for a breakdown of people with autism by ethnic group; the Strategic Director explained that while this could be provided, it would only include those people who had been already identified. There were people who were missing from the statistics, because they remained unknown or undiagnosed.  A query was raised relating to people, particularly women, who were diagnosed later in life. The Lead Commissioner explained that this could happen due to raised awareness of the condition; some people self-diagnosed 

In response to a suggestion, it was agreed, that the Commission would write to the three Members of Parliament for the Leicester area, to request that the Government make funding available to support people with autism. Members heard that Adult Social Care provided support for a lot of individuals who had autism and there was also support available in the community, for example from the Monday Club.

In response to a query by a Member about the self-assessment identifying post diagnostic support as being an area that required action, Mr John Singh, Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) commented that the CCG recognised that there was a gap which  needed to be addressed. A plan would be put together over the next two years to develop out of the existing post diagnostic support services. This plan included the training of existing staff so that they would have the specialist knowledge to support people with autism. The team would start next year and it would be an ongoing process. Mr Singh added that having access to specialist staff would be crucial for the team.

In response to a query, the Strategic Director explained that matters relating to diagnosis were the responsibility of the NHS, but all partners needed to work together to promote wellbeing. Mr Singh confirmed that the CCGs for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland were all working together to promote wellbeing for people with autism.

The meeting heard that the Lead Commissioner would shortly be leaving the authority, and the Chair and Strategic Director extended their thanks and appreciation to the Lead Commissioner, for her work on autism and other issues, while in post. 

AGREED:

                    that:

1)    the Commission accept and validate the Autism Self-Assessment submission;

2)    the Commission support the recommendations for future work to ensure the Council along with partner agencies are able to meet their legal responsibilities and raise standards.

3)    for a letter to be sent from the Commission to the Members of Parliament for the three Leicester constituencies requesting them to ask the Government for funding to help people with autism; and

4)    for the Commission to invite the Children, Young People and Schools Scrutiny Commission to a joint scrutiny meeting to consider the process of transition for children with autism to adulthood.