Announcement of methodological changes to the Autism Waiting Time Statistics

Find out about a new set of measures that have been developed for the Autism Waiting Time Statistics.

The Autism Waiting Time Statistics publication was last published in December 2021.

Having reviewed the previously published measures with NHSE and due to data quality issues with the old measures caused by referrals that had been open a long time, a new set of measures have been developed. Specific data quality measures have also been produced to help providers identify where there might be issues with their data. The intention is to review these metrics for future publications and develop further as data quality improves.

Methodological change

From the March 2022 publication onwards, the methodology used within the Autism Waiting Time Statistics will include the changes described below. Full details of the updated methodology are available on the methodology and construction pages of the publication.

From the March 2022 release the previous measures (ASD01-09) were retired and a new set of measures ASD11-24 were developed.

These measures quantify the open, new, and closed referrals by month across a rolling 12-month period. They also quantify the number of patients with an open referral, as well as looking at patients who have received a first contact appointment within 13 weeks of their referral and patients who have a recorded diagnosis.

The previous forward model methodology reported all activity back to the date of the referral and did not present current waiting list information. The new measures have been designed to show the numbers of referrals and patients at different points in time. Additionally, information on contact appointments and diagnoses associated with those patients and referrals is included. Further developments to these statistics will aim to include additional breakdowns of the number of patients with an open referral for suspected autism as well activity associated with those.

Measures

The new measures we are publishing from March 2022 are below:

Headline measures
ASD12	Number of new referrals by month within the reporting period Count of all unique referrals starting in each month between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date
ASD13	Number of closed referrals by month within the reporting period Count of all unique referrals discharged in each month between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date
ASD16	Number of patients with an open referral for suspected autism Count of all unique patients with at least one referral open at some point in each month between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date Caveat to say this include secondary reason not just primary reason for referral
ASD18	Number of patients with an open referral for suspected autism receiving a first appointment in 13 weeks or less Count of all unique patients with at least one open referral from ASD16 for which the time elapsed between referral date and care contact date is equal to or less than 91 days (13 weeks) Caveat to say this will include patients who have been waiting less than 13 weeks as well
ASD20	Number of patients with an open referral in the month and at least one care contact in the month which is part of a suspected autism referral Count of all unique patients with at least one open referral from ASD16 for who have at least one care contact within the month
ASD21	Number of patients with an autism referral and autism diagnosis recorded in the month Count of all unique patients with at least one open referral from ASD16 who also have an autism diagnosis within the month
ASD22	Number of suspected autism referrals with an autism diagnosis recorded in the month Count of all unique open referrals from ASD11 who also have an autism diagnosis within the month
ASD23	Number of suspected autism referrals with a non-autism Mental and Behavioural disorder diagnosis recorded in the month Count of all unique open referrals from ASD11 who also have a non-autism F chapter ICD-10 diagnosis within the month
ASD24	Number of suspected autism referrals with a non-autism and non-Mental and Behavioural disorder diagnosis recorded in the month Count of all unique open referrals from ASD11 who also have a non-autism and non-F chapter ICD-10 diagnosis within the month

Data quality measures
ASD11	Number of open referrals by month within the reporting period Count of all unique referrals open at some point in each month between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date
ASD14	Number of open referrals that do not appear in any subsequent month by month within the reporting period Count of all unique referrals open at some point in each month that do not appear in a subsequent month, whether discharged or not, between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date
ASD15	Number of referrals for suspected autism not flowing in every month from first submission Count of all unique referrals open at some point in each month that have not been submitted in every month between referral submission and discharge, between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date
ASD17	Number of patients with more than one open referral for suspected autism Count of all unique patients with at more than one referral open at some point in each month between the reporting period start date and reporting period end date

Previous measures published up until January 2022

MEASURE	MEASURE_NAME
ASD01	Number of new referrals for suspected autism starting during the reporting period
ASD01a	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period having an autism diagnosis recorded
ASD01b	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period having an autism diagnosis recorded
ASD01c	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period having a diagnosis recorded but not for autism
ASD01d	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period having a diagnosis recorded but not for autism
ASD01e	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period waiting for a diagnosis but had a care contact recorded
ASD01f	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period waiting for a diagnosis but had a care contact recorded
ASD01g	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period recorded as discharged from service without a diagnosis or care contact
ASD01h	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period recorded as discharged from service without a diagnosis or care contact
ASD01i	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period still waiting for a diagnosis or care contact
ASD01j	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period still waiting for a diagnosis or care contact
ASD02	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period having a first appointment recorded
ASD03	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment in 13 weeks or less
ASD04	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment in 13 weeks or less
ASD05	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment between 13 weeks and 26 weeks
ASD06	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment between 13 weeks and 26 weeks
ASD07	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment at more than 26 weeks
ASD08	Proportion of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period receiving a first appointment at more than 26 weeks
ASD09	Number of new referrals for suspected autism in the reporting period not having a first appointment recorded
ASD01k	Number of new referrals for suspected autism starting during the reporting period as rate per 100K of CCG population

Timing

The first publication to be affected by this change will be the March 2022 release, which covers referrals for suspected autism in the period April 2019 to December 2021.

Further information

Questions and feedback on the publication are welcomed and should be sent to [email protected] or by calling 0300 303 5678.

Last edited: 7 March 2022 11:16 am