UK Autism Bill

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Autism Bill Clears First Hurdle

BBC News

Let's hope that the rest of the world follows the UK's example, instead of falling for the lies that the American organization of Autism Speaks has made up.

The second reading of the autism bill will be re-broadcast today on the Parliament channel, showing from about 10.20am up to around 1 or 2pm.

Edit: The above isn't being re-broadcast today; it's the second reading of the disabled person's (independent living) bill.

Good news indeed.
I wrote to my local MP and received a letter from her today. She's supporting the bill.

I hope new citizens can be covered... Am considering a move to Britain if the Bill passes. My country is unable to do this for me. And yes, Autism Speaks doesn't speak for our rights, man!

My cynical instinct tells me they'll just increase pressure on GPs not to give referrals for diagnosis of AS, but I suppose there's always hope. Certainly beats the government's lame response: "ooh, legislation is too blunt!" Not very convincing from a government that has broken records for the volume of blunt legislation it's subjected us to.

I wonder what a diagnosed Aspie will actually get if this bill becomes law? Cognitive therapy? Money? And will employers have to take Aspies more seriously? Anybody know?

One of the first steps will be for local councils to undertake a joint strategic needs assessment with the NHS and others to begin to determine the needs of adults with autism and plan future services. There's a paucity of information on these needs--they haven't even begun the prevalence study yet--and so no one knows how long it will take before anything's actually implemented or what it will entail. The planning and awareness raising will have to be a system wide undertaking, which will be difficult to coordinate well.

There are plenty of detailed guidelines on required autism services already published by the Dept. of Health and the NAS. They've just been put on the shelf for years by local authorities, rather than working out how to implement them.

Here's the entire transcript of the second reading of the Autism Bill in Parliament:

Second Reading of Autism Bill


(found by misslottie). Very interesting. There is also something very interesting about a piece of legislation already in place, which may help those with AS ensure their right to assessments:

This decade, a circular was written under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act, 1970, which means that local authorities are required to provide assessments for those with AS. It's been used in several court cases where services were denied.

Edit: I think it might be this

They mention that adults with AS or HFA " ... are not precluded from using learning disability services, where appropriate, and may require an assessment of their social functioning and communications skills in order to establish their level of need."

There is a petition at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Autism-Bill/

This is to tell the government that they should stop attempting to block the bill, which seems to have been their policy, so far.

My thanks go to the newsgroup nntp://alt.support.austism and Phil. W. Lee there, for starting it off.

Google Groups link to the a.s.a thread.

what does the bill say?

Dunno....the link for the second reading was dead when I tried it, and the other one is very technical and scary-looking (to me at least). Where do we get the Bill itself?

I saw this on the petition:

WHAT?????? Who tried to block it? How? Do they have no scruples?

Good point....

As the Google Groups entry will disappear in the next two days, here are the useful links that Phil gave there:

Cheryl Gillan, the MP for Chesham and Amersham (it's her private members' bill). Her website.

The Bill itself (PDF 8.9KiB).

Coverage from the BBC.

The online petition.

Thanks, that's great - and the Bill itself looks fairly intelligible

This blocking attempt on the petition is tantalising.......who's Phil Lee? I see he's done petitions for autism before, but I see no contact details - I'd love to ask him how the Gov blocked the current petition, and how he got it unblocked again. There are rules about what they can reject and what they can't. I love it when a high-level cheat is exposed - if it can be done often enough we might end up with an honest system, or at least a bit less deference from Joe Public.

I think the technical one you mention is the link I posted about some legislation already existing allowing AS/HFA adults to get assessments.

I can provide a brief explanation: Many AS/HFA adults fall through the service gap between mental health and learning disability services, due to not meeting either criteria. To access learning disability services, they usually require you to have an IQ less than about 70 (i.e., in the mental retardation range), which shouldn't be the case in theory, due to government guidelines. The important part of of the link is the part quoted, which many professionals don't know about. Those with AS/HFA (who, by definition, should have at least "normal" IQs) are not excluded from learning disability services on that basis after all. They can get an assessment of their social functioning and communication skills to determine their level of need.

^
Looks like a step in the right direction then. Thanks for posting. Good if it's getting established that a normal or high IQ doesn't necessarily mean the client has no learning difficulties.

Incidentally I always found it strange that the AS diagnostic procedure screened out those with low IQ, which has nothing to do with AS.....but of course if the client has a markedly low IQ, it's likely to render the whole AS test invalid, and point to a different disorder alltogether.

Did I dream it, or did I just hear on Radio 4 that the Autism Bill has been passed in the House of Commons?

The only thing I can find on the Web is from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8016262.stm

Which seems to be saying it was at the report stage today, whatever that is.

I don't know whether to celebrate or not........ Anybody know anything more?

On the radio I noticed 2 things in particular:

1. It was remarked that there was only one journalist present.

2. An MP remarked that she knew of several cases of autistic people who had lost their artistic talent because the medics in their ignorance had given them a string of potent drugs which had pickled their brains.