Publication, Part of Autism Waiting Time Statistics
Autism Statistics, October 2024 to September 2025
Experimental statistics, Official statistics in development
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Data
No data for the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (RYW) provider has been submitted for the latest quarter (July to September 2025). This has led to a drop in the number of open referrals for patients of all ages (ASD16, ASD16a and data quality metric ASD11) and patients aged 0 to17 years (ASD16b, ASD16c and data quality metric ASD11a) at England level from June to July 2025. Our methodology to calculate the number of open referrals each month relies on a record for each referral being flowed in the month.
The number of new and closed referrals for patients of all ages (ASD12 and ASD13) and patients aged 0 to 17 years (ASD12a and ASD13a) may also be impacted.
13 November 2025 09:30 AM
Sub-ICB, ICB and Region breakdowns
In the previous edition of this publication, we issued a notice informing users that we had resolved a previously identified issue with the sub-ICB, ICB and Region breakdowns affecting all financial years from 2019/20 to 2023/24 inclusive.
This issue meant the figures in the "Unknown" group were much higher than they should have been.
We are now aware that this issue persisted in the 2022/23 csv files that were issued on 14th August 2025, although it was resolved in respect of the csv files for all other financial years that were published at this time.
It has now also been resolved in respect of the 2022/23 csv files that are issued as part of this publication.
There is, however, a minor outstanding issue affecting a limited amount of subnational 2019-20 data.
As a result, metrics ASD16f, ASD16g, ASD16h, ASD16i, ASD16j, ASD16k, ASD25, ASD25a and ASD25b within the ‘AutismStats_Apr2019_Mar2020_Region’ and ‘AutismStats_Apr2019_Mar2020_ICB’ CSV files are currently omitted. All other files contain the full set of metrics across the full time series
NHS England apologises for any inconvenience.
13 November 2025 09:30 AM
Methodology
Analytical approach
There is one main approach to autism waiting time statistics published here, contributing to an overall picture of the experience of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnostic pathways.
The analysis takes the latest record of all referrals where the reason for the referral is suspected autism. For each month in the reporting period, we look at whether the referral was new, open at any point or closed in the month.
Waiting time to care contact approach
For waiting times, we use the referrals for suspected autism which were open within the month. We then look at the date of the first attended care contact related to those referrals if one has occurred. The waiting time taken here is the time from initial referral to the first care contact.
More detailed descriptions of the analysis undertaken can be found on the construction page of this publication, found here.
These statistics are based on the information collected from the Mental Health Services Dataset. Further detail on the information captured within the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS) is available here.
Access the code used to create this report
From September 2023, the code used to create the outputs for this report is available on our NHS Digital GitHub webpage.
Revised approach to production of data for completed financial years
Up to and including the August 2025 publication, csv outputs were recreated in respect of all completed financial years, as well as for the financial year currently in progress, using the latest available multiple submission window model (MSWM) data submitted to MHSDS.
As of the November 2025 publication onwards, the csv outputs in respect of completed financial years will not be recreated. The latest available MSWM data from MHSDS will be used to create csv files in respect of the financial year currently in progress only.
This aligns with the production processes for the main MHSDS monthly publication.
It may occasionally be necessary to make exceptions to this however. For example, in the November 2025 publication, the 2022-23 has been refreshed to resolve an outstanding issue relating to high levels of unknowns within sub-national data.
Last edited: 13 November 2025 9:31 am