Incorrect diagnoses of autism in children (FOI)

​​Request

Please advise how many children have been wrongfully diagnosed with not having autism and then receving ​​a diagnosis later in life.

Response

No central record is held for the information requested.  Any documentation that a person had been assessed for autism as a child, and was not diagnosed until later in their life, would only be available within their individual medical records.

A Scheduled Public Authority is not obliged to create or manipulate data for the purposes of responding to Freedom of Information requests and therefore, Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.​