Autism assessment pathways for older people: Examples of three diagnostic pathways

There has been a lot of interest in how autism diagnostic pathways for older people are structured across the country. Within this case series, we present varied diagnostic pathways from three services within the NHS, and hope this will be particularly useful to clinicians who are reviewing their own diagnostic pathways. Ta Tzu presents a traditional specialist adult autism diagnostic service, which sees adults across the age range, with no upper age limit. Natalie and colleagues provide an example of joint working and scaffolding from an autism diagnostic service to an inpatient mental health team. Jonny outlines a proposed new diagnostic pathway within an older peoples’ community treatment team. All of these pathways have their own unique strengths and challenges, some of which the authors reflect on at the end of each case study. The reader is invited to reflect on the pathways within their own services.