Committee
Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee 09 March 2011
09 Mar 2011 · S3 · Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee
Item of business
Autism Strategy
Shona Robison
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That is an important point. One of the reference group’s sub-groups is focusing specifically on transitions. That issue is often raised with me. Parents may feel secure about the provision for their child, and knowing what they have means that they can plan the family’s week around that. Come the end of that provision, at age 18 or sometimes 19, the situation is suddenly different, and they are looking to adult services to make provision and they are having to negotiate, which can be very difficult. The work of the sub-group will therefore be extremely important. It is particularly important to start the process early enough. Conversations on getting a plan in place should happen long before the child finishes school, whether or not the support will be self-directed.As I said the last time that I was before the committee, self-directed support packages could offer a really good solution for adults with autism, and in particular school leavers during the transition period, because they can be tailor-made around their needs. The early indications from the work that we have been doing on self-directed support are that adults with autism—particularly young adults—are the group who are benefiting most from self-directed support packages. If we can tie all that together, there is an opportunity to resolve the transition issue once and for all.
In the same item of business
The Convener
Lab
I reconvene the meeting. We move to the eighth agenda item, which is to hear an update on the Scottish Government’s autism strategy. As members will recall, ...
Shona Robison (Minister for Public Health and Sport)
Thank you, convener, for the invitation to come before the committee again to update members on the progress that has been made on the recommendations of the...
The Convener
Lab
Thank you, minister. Can you provide a little bit more detail about the reference group and engagement with key stakeholders, which you touched on in your op...
Shona Robison
I will ask Jean MacLellan to say a bit more about the detail of that.It is difficult, especially in trying to get a users’ perspective, to ensure that people...
Jean MacLellan (Scottish Government Directorate for Health and Social Care Integration)
I have only two or three things to add. While the strategy was being consulted on, there were a number of consultation events throughout the country, which w...
The Convener
Lab
That is helpful to know, because that work is important. It is always positive to have opportunities for service users and their carers to engage. I sometime...
Shona Robison
Yes. We can certainly consider that. I chair the learning disability group twice a year, so we could consider your suggestion in that context. In addition, J...
The Convener
Lab
Thank you. I invite questions from members.
Kenneth Gibson
SNP
How are you addressing the inconsistency in service provision, minister? When we took evidence on Hugh O’Donnell’s proposed bill on autism, we heard that the...
Shona Robison
That is an important point. We secured a commitment through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for guidance to try to address such inconsistency. W...
Kenneth Gibson
SNP
There is a concern not only about the provision of adult services—although that concern was expressed strongly—but about the transition between childhood and...
Shona Robison
That is an important point. One of the reference group’s sub-groups is focusing specifically on transitions. That issue is often raised with me. Parents may ...
Christina McKelvie
SNP
My colleague Kenny Gibson pre-empted some of my questions on transition. An issue that comes up in our postbags is the transition from primary school to seco...
Shona Robison
The sub-group that is looking at transition will be very much involved in the good practice transition guidance, but what else we put in place around that wi...
Jean MacLellan
The work is at a very early stage. The sub-group is currently refining its remit and the actions that it will undertake. Obviously, the sub-group will devise...
Christina McKelvie
SNP
One issue that came up was the training of professionals in diagnosis. We heard stories about people being misdiagnosed. Given the additional support for lea...
Shona Robison
A sub-group is specifically looking at training, because it is an important issue, although one challenge is that diagnosis is not an exact science. We hope ...
Jean MacLellan
The waiting list work has been given to NHS Lothian because it has particular expertise in the area. The person who will lead that work is Dr Iain McClure, w...
Alasdair Allan
SNP
I want to ask about the timescales that are associated with the strategy. Are you satisfied that you have a series of outcomes that are clear enough to measu...
Shona Robison
I think that we have. I hope that my comments on what we have done in the space of a couple of months since the last time I was here to discuss the issue hav...
Margaret Smith
LD
I want to pick up on the point about the not insignificant resource that is required and the financially straitened times. One concern that we had about the ...
Shona Robison
We have talked about the sub-groups and the priorities. The resource will be directed towards those priorities, which are transitions in support for adults, ...
Jean MacLellan
There is. Given the point about the importance of ensuring user and carer involvement, there is a danger of being premature if we respond quickly and say tha...
Margaret Smith
LD
This is less of a question and more of a comment. When we had the more informal session with people from Glasgow, I was struck by the fact that some of the i...
Shona Robison
I agree. Some of the changes might be about spending money differently. Self-directed support is a good example of that, as it is about unlocking resources t...
The Convener
Lab
We all want greater take-up of self-directed support but, as an MSP who sometimes has service users contact me to ask for assistance, I am struck by the fact...
Shona Robison
That is a strong point. One benefit of self-directed support is that it gets away from the idea that people can only have either a council service or a direc...
Jean MacLellan
SPAEN is the Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network. Some people who want to go down the route of self-directed support tend to be quite tentative to ...
Ken Macintosh
Lab
I welcome the work that has been going on, especially in relation to the reformed reference group, the expanded membership, the open annual meeting and so on...
Shona Robison
That will happen through the efforts put into training to national standards. That all relates to better diagnosis and to trying to get things right from the...