Talks on way forward under care package
A meeting hosted by North Lanarkshire Council on the ongoing strategy for autism services was hailed as “extremely positive ”by the council’s depute leader.
Councillor Paul Kelly chaired the multi-agency meeting which included representatives from the council, Scottish Government, NHS Lanarkshire, Scottish Autism and HOPE for Autism.
The meeting was given an overview of all the autism services in North Lanarkshire involved in the delivering the area’s autism plan – linked to the national autism strategy.
A large part of the meeting was dedicated to the issue of the closure of the One Stop Shop for Autism (OSSA).
All parties agreed the importance of putting in place a successful transition to other services for users of OSSA and officials from Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire in partnership with other service providers will map out that transition in the coming days and weeks.
Councillor Kelly said: “The council met with service users of OSSA earlier this week and it was clear they had concerns about gaps in the services they receive when OSSA closes. It’s essential that we now ensure that those gaps are filled and that existing local services can be responsive to the needs of individuals with autism and their families.
“Addressing autism is not about one service. It’s about multiple services working with children and adults to avoid people slipping through the net.
“The service users of OSSA valued the service highly, but OSSA was a pilot service and government funding has now come to an end.
“There has never been an agreement that councils continue to fund the service, as COSLA have confirmed.
“However, the most important thing now is that everyone focusses on what happens next.
“Scottish Autism will contact service users to give them details of the appropriate person to contact at Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire. This will ensure that we are able to arrange a planned and appropriate transition. This may involve some additional short-term support from Scottish Autism and may also involve transitional funding from Scottish Government.”
As part of the agreement at the meeting, Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire will re-examine the autism plan for the area.