Esmé Kenney

Support for autistic people in Sheffield is being offered by a collaboration of NHS services and charities to help them before and after diagnosis. As part of the Autism Waiting List Project, Sheffield Adult Autism and Neurodevelopmental Service (SAANS) and the Sheffield Autism Partnership Network (SAPN) are working with six different charities across the city. One of the organisations taking part is , a self-advocacy group for autistic individuals, which is part of Disability Sheffield.

More people are turning to an NHS system which allows them to choose a health provider and reduce their waiting time for an autism assessment. This comes as figures show 147,042 patients in England are waiting longer than 13 weeks. Right to Choose is a system that can allow people seeking an autism assessment to bypass long waiting lists within the NHS.

As more people have become aware of what it means to be autistic, waiting times to be assessed have increased dramatically – and campaigners fear a quarter of a million people could be on the list in England by the end of this year. There were 172,022 people in England on the waiting list after being referred by a GP, as of December 2023 – and this could reach 250,000 if the list continues to grow at this rate.