Health secretary says government has been preparing early and will spend money on ambulances and A&E upgrades

The NHS faces a more challenging winter than normal, the health secretary has warned, as she announced a £140m increase for urgent care in England.

Yvette Cooper said the money would help increase capacity, and that the NHS has been preparing since July to deal with the impact of seasonal illnesses.

Rebecca Hope Duncan says she has not received any help after being assessed as autistic, in response to Prof Peter Fonagy’s review of mental health, ADHD and autism services. Plus letters from Jeremy Seymour, John Bryant, Peter Deadman, Steve Bamford and another reader

Your coverage of the Fonagy review concentrates on children and on the risk of diagnosing too readily (NHS at risk of ‘system failures’ as demand for ADHD and autism care soars, inquiry finds, 9 October). I’d like to speak for those of us who were not diagnosed at all.

I first asked for help at 17. For 34 years I was treated for anxiety, depression and trauma. All were real; none were the whole story. I was diagnosed as autistic at 51. The same report identified ADHD, which until 2013 could not officially be diagnosed alongside autism.

Exclusive: Four MPs raise conflict of interest concerns over Samantha Jones’s past links to a big provider of ADHD assessments

A senior civil servant should play no part in ministers’ crackdown on private attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism clinics because of her recent ties to the industry, MPs have said.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are demanding that Samantha Jones, the permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), steps away from any role in plans to toughen regulation of the booming market in private neurodiversity assessments.

England-focused mental health review returns stark warning and calls for shift to ‘needs-led’ system

• Explainer | What has the Fonagy review found and what does it recommend?

• Analysis | No ‘snowflakes’: mental health review says today’s youth have it harder and harms are real

The NHS in England is heading into a “world of system failures” as it struggles to cope with relentlessly rising demand for mental health, ADHD and autism care, leaving those affected desperate for support, a government-commissioned inquiry has found.

The stark warning was made in a review led by Prof Peter Fonagy into the sharp rise in demand over recent decades for help with mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions.