Questioning the First Minister in the Welsh Parliament yesterday, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood, asked how the Welsh Government is supporting people with neuro-diverse conditions.
He also questioned him over a proposed idea to help deal with the Coronavirus COVID-19.
Speaking in the Chamber, he said:
“Given the circumstances, I'll postpone the question I was going to ask and instead put a question to you I've received from the Independent Diversity Adviser who is the Force Co-ordinator for the National Police Autism Association in North Wales and who works with the North Wales Integrated Autism Service developing and delivering training, and who is also an independent autism rights campaigner, and he said that, as part of his advisory work with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, he suggested what he regards as a simple idea to help with the coronavirus COVID-19, which would be producing a printable A4 sheet for people to put in their window or on their gate to let others know they're in isolation - to allow others, such as delivery people, to know they need to be extra vigilant, and also to let other callers know they should find another way of contacting the person. I wonder how you would respond to that question, which it was suggested to him he refer to an Assembly Member for raising here”.
The First Minister told Mr Isherwood that support for people with neuro-diverse conditions “continues to develop through, for example, the integrated autism service” and that a demand and capacity review of neurodevelopmental services is under way.
He added: “A statutory code of practice on the delivery of autism services will be published for consultation in April”.
With regards the idea to help with the Coronavirus outbreak, he said:
“I think it's great that people use their experience and their expertise to put ideas to us. We would need to test them with others to make sure that there weren't unintended downsides to the ideas that might make them less advisable than they first appeared”.
