Neurodiversity: Children
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the level of current appointment waiting times for community paediatric referrals for neurodiverse children in Bromsgrove and the villages; and what steps he is taking to ensure these waiting times meet the 80% in 18-week target.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
We have set clear ambitions for community health services through our Medium Term Planning Framework and for the first time, we have set a target for systems to reduce long waits for community health services. By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services in line with targets for elective care.
In 2025, we published Standardising Community Health Services which provides an overview of community health services. Further guidance was published in February 2026 to add additional detail to the community health services integrated care boards should commission. This includes neurodiverse assessments for children.
The Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board have been working in partnership to reduce neurodiversity diagnostic waits. The current waiting times have been reduced through considerable investment in outsourced assessments, totalling 1,150 additional neurodivergence assessments for children across Worcestershire, increasing investment in clinicians to create NHS capacity and transformation work within the service to ensure evidence based, safe, and high-quality care is delivered whilst we recover the waiting times.
The National Health Service trust and integrated care board have a three year plan to address long waits in a sustainable way that includes increased investment in health care professionals to increase the capacity of the service, the outsourcing of assessments from trusted private providers for those waiting the longest, and a pre and post diagnostic service for neurodivergence support, commissioned by the integrated care board, expected to commence later this year.
Through this work the expectation for Worcestershire is the following:
- all waits to be below 104 weeks by end of March 2027;
- all waits to be below 52 weeks by end of March 2028; and
- all waits to be below 18 weeks by end of March 2029.
Verbatim has judged this answer against the question that was actually asked — answered, partly answered, or evaded. Sign in to see the verdict →