Sheffield, UK – GP’s have been given funding for a new initiative which will help support autistic adults.
The funding will go to services including, psychiatry, psychology, specialist nursing and speech and language therapy.
The service will include social care assessments and support for families, partners and carers.
Doctor Steve Thomas who is the lead on mental health for NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group told the Yorkshire Post:
“This new service is going to support people across the board with autistic spectrum conditions – having a formal diagnosis is a fundamental part of the process of developing self-awareness, understanding and self-management.”
Andy Bragg, assistant service director at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust, which will run the new initiative adds that the service will work with other health and social care teams to ensure that people with autism are better understood and able to access mainstream services.
The Yorkshire Post reports that the service is for:
‘people with autism spectrum conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, semantic-pragmatic disorder, which affects the use of language in a social context including knowing what to say and when to say it, and dyspraxia, which is a type of developmental co-ordination disorder.’
The full article in the Yorkshire Post can be read here