Dear Ms Bower,
 
I hope you are well. Thank you for your email to Lee, and for bearing with us for a few days whilst we were able to respond properly.
 
Thank you very much for raising this and for sharing your petition. Lee is grateful to you for doing so and has asked me to look into this for you.  We are very sorry that you have had cause for concern here.

 

In case it is of use, we wanted to share with you some information on the current level of training provided.

 

The minister was asked how many DWP staff dealing with Employment Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment assessments had received training on the needs of autistic people in late June. The minister responded:

‘The department and its assessment providers (APs) are fully committed to supporting those with mental health conditions. All health professionals (HPs) receive comprehensive training in the functional assessment of disability and mental health conditions, including Autism. APs also provide their HPs with condition specific information on Autism, which has been externally quality assured by relevant experts.

 

In addition, mental health function champions support HPs by providing additional expertise on mental health, cognitive, developmental, and learning disabilities, and can be consulted at any time during the assessment process.’

 

Your petition though, asks for more training, so we have had a look into the external quality assurance experts mentioned above. We have found that the DWP staff have access to the autism and neurodiversity toolkit and states:
 
DWP has worked in partnership with Autism Alliance UK and the Autism Task Group, comprising: disabled people, parents and advocates, disability organisations and medical professionals/ academics. Together the group has developed this Disability Confident: Autism and Neurodiversity Toolkit to help staff, from all Government Departments, better understand how they can support people with Autism and associated Neuro-Diverse conditions.

Regarding autism training for health and social care providers, this is overseen by the Care Quality Commission which says:
 
"Since 1 July 2022, all registered health and social care providers have been required to provide training for their staff in learning disability and autism, including how to interact appropriately with autistic people and people who have a learning disability. This should be at a level appropriate to their role.

 
This new legal requirement was introduced by the Health and Care Act 2022. It applies to:

all services and all settings, not just specialist services for people with a learning disability and autistic people, and not just the places where people live
all health and care staff as well as ancillary staff who may have contact with people with a learning disability and autistic people, such as administrative staff.”
 

Training staff to support autistic people and people with a learning disability - Care Quality Commission (cqc.org.uk)
 
The CQC goes on to address the specific training package the Government recommends:

 

“In 2021 the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, Health Education England and Skills for Care developed and trialled the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training package on learning disability and autism with over 8,000 people. This training is named after Oliver McGowan, whose tragic death in 2016 highlighted the need for better training for health and social care staff when interacting with autistic people and people with a learning disability.

 

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training is the government's preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff to undertake to enable providers to meet the requirements of this regulation. We understand that work is ongoing to finalise standardised training packages for staff.”