FOI REF: FOI/2023/4915
You asked
Please could you confirm how many individuals living in England have received and diagnosis of severe autism with an associated severe learning disability.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, we do not hold information showing the number of individuals living in England who have received a diagnosis of severe autism and an associated severe learning disability.
To fulfil this request, we would need to create new information, involving engagement with external clinicians and experts in this field to define these conditions and create premade code lists before we could derive this information from electronic health records. As public authorities are not obligated to create information to respond to requests, this information is not held for FOI purposes.
However, we have produced the following publication on Autism prevalence in the UK, which you may find useful: Autism prevalence, UK, 2020.
NHS Digital also publish the following statistics which may be of helpful for your enquiry:
We would also recommend that NHS Digital may be better placed to assist with this query. They can be contacted at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.