Autism: Training
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of training available to NHS staff on communication with autistic patients, including (a) in-person and (b) in written communications.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Department recognises the importance of effective communication with autistic people across all healthcare settings. While there has been no assessment made on the adequacy of training available to National Health Service staff on communication with autistic patients specifically, there are a range of programmes across NHS England and the Department that aim to improve training for NHS staff who work with autistic people.
Under the Health and Care Act 2022, Care Quality Commission registered providers are required to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role. This will help to ensure that staff have the right knowledge and skills to provide safe and informed care. The Government is supporting the rollout of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism (Oliver’s Training), which is the recommended package to meet the statutory training requirement. Information about Oliver’s Training is available on the NHS England website, including resources and case studies to support delivery. Led by the University of Leicester, a long-term evaluation study is underway of the delivery and impact of Oliver’s Training across health and care services between 2024 to 2027.
In addition, since 2016, all NHS organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss.
NHS England published a revised AIS on 30 June 2025 to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/accessible-information-standard/
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of disabled people using services.
NHS England is also rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag across health and social care which enables the recording of key information about a disabled patient or client and the reasonable adjustments to care and treatment that they need, to ensure support can be tailored appropriately and equitably. Guidance and free training on the Flag is available for health and social care staff.
A new information standard, published on 19 December 2025, marks the latest stage in the national roll-out of the Digital Flag. The information standard can be found at the following link:
Under the new information standard, all publicly funded health and social care service providers must be able to share, read, and write reasonable adjustment data by 30 September 2026. This means that IT systems must be able to read the information stored in reasonable adjustment digital flags and update records as and when an individual’s adjustment needs change.
NHS England has also published guidance on Meeting the needs of autistic adults in mental health services to help drive our collective efforts to bring about improvements in the provision of mental health care for autistic adults in all mental health services. It will support staff working in mental health to better understand and feel confident about meeting the needs of autistic people who access their services. The guidance on Meeting the needs of autistic adults in mental health services is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/meeting-the-needs-of-autistic-adults-in-mental-health-services/
In 2025, NHS England also published Autism-informed inpatient care guidance. This guidance aims to support people working in mental health, learning disability, and autism inpatient services to have a greater understanding of autism-informed inpatient care, and is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/autism-informed-inpatient-care/
It sits alongside the co-produced Culture of care standards for mental health inpatient care, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/culture-of-care-standards-for-mental-health-inpatient-services/
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