To approve the Herefordshire Autism Strategy 2019 - 2022

The autism strategy will:

a.     Set out the actions required to achieve improved life outcomes for people with autism by better access to services. Through strategic improvement the council and the Clinical Commissioning group (CCG) will make and or influence reasonable adjustments and workforce awareness, this will in turn lead to wider participation in the community and more fulfilling lives.

b.     Set out the outcomes required, resources and ownership against each priority. This will be supported by an action plan (appendix 1) which sets out the annual activity and the identified outcomes for children and adults with autism with the appropriate and available resources for groups of all ages.

c.      Act as a medium term framework for future delivery and alignment of universal services to ensure the needs of people with autism are appropriately met.

d.     Ensure that all commissioned activity across the council’s directorates and the CCG is aligned to the health and wellbeing blueprint for adult social care and with the NHS long term commitment to ensure reasonable adjustments are made in both primary and acute health settings and services.

That:

(a)       the Herefordshire Autism Strategy 2019 – 2022 be approved; and

(b)       the executive’s response to the recommendations of the children and young people scrutiny committee at appendix 4 be approved.

1       The Herefordshire Autism Strategy is not approved. This is not recommended as there is a statutory duty on each council as outlined in the Autism Act 2009 and the national Adult Autism Strategy 2010, ‘Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives’ which places a legal duty on all local authorities to develop and implement a local autism plan in partnership with health.

2       That the council develops a separate Autism Strategy to the CCG that does not consider the primary health care needs of people with autism. This is not recommended because it would negatively impact on the opportunities to jointly plan and deliver better outcomes to people with autism, nor does it meet the legal duty.

3       The council does not consider the needs of children and young people and creates an adult only strategy, as the duty applies to adults only. This is not recommended as this limits the impact for people with autism and would miss opportunities to ensure that services are prioritised and coordinated from child to adulthood. This enables the issues identified by people in adulthood are addressed earlier in the future and the learning from this applied to children’s services, resulting in better life outcomes.