Health Services: Autism and Learning Disability
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress his Department has made on the implementation of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training on learning disability and autism across the NHS and social care workforce.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
On 19 June 2025, the Department laid a Code of Practice in Parliament which sets out how providers can meet the statutory requirement for learning disability and autism training.
Over three million people have completed the e-learning package, the first part of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism (Oliver’s Training). National Health Service providers have reported that approximately 520,000 people have completed either Tier 1 or Tier 2 of Oliver’s Training. At the end of August 2025, 2,850 people have been trained to deliver Oliver’s Training and have been added to the Approved Trainer list.
Data on completion of Oliver’s Training by the NHS is held locally and is reported to NHS England by the integrated care boards. This data does not differentiate between completion by frontline staff and other NHS and social care staff and is instead focussed on the overall completion of Tier 1 and Tier 2.
The Department will be providing funding in autumn 2025 to support rollout of Oliver’s Training to the adult social care sector, via the same online claims service as the Learning and Development Support Scheme.
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