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Autism and Moving to UK

NAS72064

Hi - My wife and I are considering a move to the UK from Australia.  We have an early teens autistic child.  In Australia the Govt established the NDIS which provides support funding (respite care, psychology, OT, speech therapy, etc).  I am trying to find out how such services are accessed and paid for in the UK?  Is it via the NHS, Private Health or just user pays direct to the consultant?  Any advise or pointers much appreciated.

Parents Reply Children
  • in reply to NAS72064

    I agree with puff ,there has been a scandal here with autistic people taken off PIP and then starving to death , and teens being locked in solitary for years with no help ,fed through a hole in the door . Theses things are happening but nobody seems to care.

  • in reply to NAS72064

    You may want to contact SENCO ( Educational authority ) who deal with educational interventions & assistance in schools here. I only have experience in Primary school settings so can't comment on your age group.

    I'm sure you'd get most of what you get there but whether it's as generous, the same quality or as well coordinated as there I would have my doubts. In my area we can wait up to 26 weeks just for a decision on whether the child needs a classroom assistant. Pretty traumatic and we haven't been reassured the teacher or assessor know what they're doing in the meantime. We had to push them to apply for assistance. 

    There has been nasty austerity to the public sector here since 2010 as Puff says, where they only seem to want to boost privatisation.  

  • in reply to Turtle

    It is different for everyone based on a needs assessment. From our budget we choose fortnightly sessions with a Speech Therapist and a Psychologist.  We get after-school learning assistance twice a week and we have a consultant doing in-school visits regularly.  The consultant discusses school and life with our son while he is on the school grounds.  The feedback from these sessions is then used to advise his teachers and us on his Individualized Learning Plan.

    In addition to the consultants we get budget for respite care ,n-home learning aids (e.g. iPad) and living assistance (we get someone in regularly to help maintain our garden -  a different take on respite care).  

    The advantage of the NDIS is that it provides funding aligned to different categories of help, but leaves a degree of control with the primary care giver on how be to apportion that funding e.g. % spent on Speech Therapy vs % spent on Occupational Therapy and the primary care giver  gets to choose the professionals they want to use.  It's not perfect but it works for us.