ANDY BURNHAM must fix the “national government failure” of spiralling wait times for autism assessments, campaigners demanded today.

New NHS data showed that more than 294,000 people are waiting for evaluation in England, with around 87 per cent not receiving an initial test within the recommended 13 weeks.

The National Autistic Society urged the PM to live up to his promise of “investing in people’s success rather than paying for failure.”

Average wait times can be as high as three years, depending on the area of the country where people live, the society said.

Its head of policy, Mel Merritt, said “Waiting times for autism assessments are a national government failure,” adding that successive governments have had warnings for years.

She said this was Mr Burnham’s opportunity to “fix these failures” by “investing in assessment capacity, taking accountability for driving down wait times, and creating a system that provides support, both before and after an assessment.”