Autism

It is estimated that there are half a million autistic people living in the UK. 

We estimate that over half a million adult social care workers support people who are living with a learning disability and/or autistic people in England. 

It's vital that these workers have the right values, skills and knowledge to provide high quality, person-centred care and support.  

We’ve worked with the National Autistic Society and Skills for Health to develop resources to help you ensure that your staff have the right skills and knowledge when working with autistic people.

Our resources explain what skills and knowledge workers need to support autistic people, their carers and families, and can help employers to develop their workforce. 

We also facilitate an 'Expert group of people with a learning disability and autistic people' to support this work. Find out more about the group, including how to join, below. 

Partners announced for the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Learning Disability and Autism training for all health and social care staff   

Mandatory training for all  social care and health staff in learning disabilities and autism moved a step closer today with the announcement of the partners who will design, develop, trial and evaluate the training.  

The training is named after Oliver McGowan whose sad death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training that offers a greater understanding and will help improve their skills and confidence when delivering care to people with learning disabilities and autistic people. Oliver’s mum Paula McGowan led a campaign for more training.

In 2019, the government set out their commitment to mandatory training in their consultation response in 'Right to be heard’. This was in response to recommendations made in the second annual Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) report.

Today [16.07.2020] The University of Bristol’s fourth annual Learning Disability Mortality Review (LeDeR) report is due to be published and NHS England and NHS Improvement will publish its second ‘LeDeR: Action from Learning’ report at the same time so it is timely that Health Education England, Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social care can announce that they have selected the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD), Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Mencap Society/National Autistic Society and Pathways Associates CIC as trial partners and the National Development Team for inclusion have been selected as the evaluation partner.     

I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone who put forward bids and the selection panels for their time and expertise.  We had a positive response to our search for partners - with 27 partnerships representing over 200 organisations submitting proposals for the trials and five for the evaluation.’   ‘I am grateful for Paula McGowan and many others who have campaigned tirelessly and  raised the important need for greater education and training of health and care staff in Learning disability and Autism.   There are too many examples where experiences and outcomes for people needs to improve and part of this has to be greater awareness and training of our staff.’  - Mark Radford, Chief Nurse, Heath Education England

‘Oliver’s story is heart-breaking and I wholeheartedly support Paula’s campaign to make sure no other family faces what she has had to endure.‘And that’s why I am proud to be responsible for taking forward the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training programme, so all health and social care staff will receive training in learning disabilities and autism to provide them with the confidence and skills to understand the needs of those in their care.

‘This training must be developed and delivered hand in hand with those who have learning disabilities and autistic people, so we can tackle bias and unconscious attitudes, and promote a positive culture of care.’ - Minister for Care Helen Whately

‘I have always said that I believed Oliver’s death could have been avoided and that better training for healthcare staff might have made all the difference.  

I am extremely pleased to see that the new training is now coming closer to being a reality. I am proud that it will carry Oliver’s name and I hope it ensures that in future everyone with learning disabilities and autism gets access to the levels of high quality care that they need and deserve’ - Oliver’s mum Paula McGowan

How did we find our partners?

We used procurement processes that included the direct involvement of people with lived and professional expertise and made sure they were active in every stage. We made it clear that autistic people, people with a learning disability and family carers must be involved in every stage of the trials and must be appropriately remunerated for their work.

There was an assessment panel for the trials and a separate panel for the evaluation contract, each panel included representatives from:

• Workforce Autism Group for England
• Health Education England
• Skills for Care
• Department of Health and Social Care
• NHS England and NHS Improvement
• Workforce Expert by Experience advisory Panel, and
• The Local Government Association

On each panel there was at least one autistic person, one person with a learning disability and one family carer, who each represented a network of other people with lived experience.  On the trial panel six of the 12 members were people representing lived experience and on the evaluation panel 5 of the 11 were.

The panels reviewed all the bids and shortlisted those which met the quality criteria.  This included the breadth of health and social care staff and how they would make sure that autism and learning disability are clearly differentiated in their training.  Bidders meeting the quality threshold were invited to give a short presentation and answer some further clarification questions. Once the panels had assured themselves of the quality of the bids, an exercise was then done to assess the costs and benefits of all the proposals that met the quality required. New trial and evaluations partners are each leading a consortia of diverse organisations and networks involving 56 organisations.

All lead bidders have received notification and been offered a feedback video meeting.