In March 2023, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) launched its updated and co—produced Autism Strategy, which runs from 2022 - 2027. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the development of the Strategy and are delighted to provide this report which covers our progress to 2024.
Our Autism Strategy is directly linked to the government’s National Strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026. We have taken the 6 priority areas in the government’s strategy as the areas we are focused on improving. Each of these “aims” has its own section in the report.
Our Vision is to deliver a positive experience for all autistic people whether they are accessing our services or working in our organisation.
We will do this by:
- developing an autism-friendly culture across our organisation
- making the principles of person-centred care, continuous improvement, innovation, engagement, and partnership working fundamental to caring for and supporting autistic children, young people, and adults
- providing compassionate care and support, with the individual, their family, friends, or people important to them
- delivering the right care, first time and ensure that every decision supports what is best for the person to help them lead healthy, safe, happy, and rewarding lives.
You can read the Strategy and watch some animations about the work we are doing at our website at: www.
Some of the work we have been doing has been captured in more detail in our Ask Listen Do reports which you can access from the main Autism Strategy page on our website.
From a governance perspective, we have set up an Autism Strategy Implementation Group which reports to the Trust’s Quality Committee, this in turn reports to the Trust Board. The Group is chaired by a Non-Executive Director of the Trust. Representatives from clinical Care Groups (where services for patients are delivered) and corporate services meet quarterly to report their progress in meeting the commitments in the Strategy. Our reports consider work to improve both patient and staff experience. A key element of the reporting is to provide feedback from autistic people about their experience at CWP – the quotes in this report are taken from the individual service quarterly reports.
In June 2024, we held an Autism Strategy Share Learning Celebration Event at our Education Centre. We had hoped to make this a broader event involving people who use our services, but the General Election purdah rules prevented this. It was a very positive day where different services highlighted the work they were doing.
This report provides an overview of our progress so far. We know we haven’t achieved our vision yet. We trust this report highlights our journey so far and demonstrates our commitment to delivering a positive experience for all autistic people. There is more work to do and we are excited to do it.