Autism

Following Oliver McGowans death in November 2019, the Government published: 'Right to be heard' the Government's response to the consultation on proposals for introducing mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and social care staff. 

The response included a commitment to develop a standardised training package that aims to make sure staff working in health and social care receive learning disability and autism training, at the right level for their role - Skills for Care and HEE have co-ordinated the development of these resources.

Trials and evaluation

If you have a question, please email our Information Team or HEE. You can also visit the Health Education England website to find out more about Oliver's campaign, the trial partners, what the training looks like, FAQs, and stakeholder feedback.

Skills for Care, National Development Team for Inclusion and the National Autistic Society have developed three resources to support health and social care commissioners improve how they commission services that support people with autism and improve the outcomes for them and their families.

The following three resources have been developed in partnership with autistic people and organisations that are engaged with autistic people:

Framework

Explains the things that you need to analyse, the things that you need to do, and who/what organisations you should engage with. It also has links to useful guidance and information to help you identify and plan the changes needed to improve your commissioning practices to deliver person-centred outcomes for local people with autism.

View the framework

Framework diagram

This diagram shows the support services that people with autism and their family members should be able access and therefore the support services you need to commission from diagnosis to post diagnostic assessment including ongoing support.

View the diagram

Population calculator for people on the autism spectrum

Use can use this tool to estimate the number of people with autism in your area and it covers 2020 to 2035.

View the population calculator

We would also like to share good commissioning practice examples to support this document so if you have any feedback or examples, please share them with us by emailing policy@skillsforcare.org.uk.

Good learning disability and autism commissioning practice and impact: Rapid literature review - November 2022

The Institute of Public Care at Oxford Brookes University was jointly commissioned by Skills for Care and Health Education England to carry out this rapid literature review. It has been produced to inform the work of the Building the Right Support commissioning task, along with the finish group and the delivery board.

This literature review looks at the key themes of good commissioning practice, how it is enabled and measuring its impact.

View the rapid literature review

This research report (published in December 2018) explores the adult social care workforce supporting people with learning disabilities and/or autism, using data from the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care.

Download the report

We commissioned a research project to find out if families caring for a young person with a learning disability and/or autism had access to tailored learning and development support their transition into adulthood better.

Download the report

This guide helps employers to think about how they can develop their workforce, to identify what carers need to understand about personal relationships, and how they can create a workforce development programme.

Download the guide

• How to be a great autistic individual employer is for individual employers on the autism spectrum who are employing a personal assistant(s) for themselves, or on behalf of a person with autism.
• How to be a great personal assistant for someone with autism is for personal assistants who are providing care and support for people with autism.

Skills for Care developed the Level 5 Commissioning for Wellbeing qualification to support the learning and development needs of people who commission social care services.

Find out more

We have developed a guide in partnership with East Sussex County Council (ESCC) which supports people with learning disabilities and/or autism with COVID-19 challenges. The guidelines aim to help the workforce support people to adapt their behaviour to continue to safely deliver care without increasing anxiety for themselves or the person they are caring for.

Find out more

Health Education England has commissioned NDTi and Skills for Care to develop a resource to support people working in health and social care who do not regularly support people with a learning disability and/or autism.  

View the resource

This resource is different to the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training trials and is focussed on making reasonable adjustments, the trials cover wider content and reasonable adjustments will form an element of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training.