"Being delayed an appointment due to sons age"

Just after my son had turned one we started having concerns about his development - he was not meeting milestones as expected and seemed to be 'behind' (mentally rather than physically). He was not pointing and had a regression in regards to giving any eye contact or answering to his name which were the first signs we wondered if something was wrong.

We expressed our concerns to our Health Visitor who came to see our son and mentioned we think our son could be autistic. She was great at reviewing our son but agreed he 'failed' most of the assessments that she tried on him on a few separate visits (I think the only one that didn't come back concerning was the gross motor skills section) and said that she shared our concerns in thinking he is possibly autistic. He was seen by a GP who said she also thought it was likely he could be autistic.

He was referred to SALT and OT who also share our concerns. He is non verbal at almost 2 years old and has a lot of sensory issues. He was referred to the pediatrician after his 1st birthday which unfortunately was declined at first by them mainly due to his age and I think taking a 'wait and see' approach having not have seen the SALT team etc for long enough. We felt very disappointed and deflated at this as the professionals listed above had all shared our concerns. We tried to push to still be on the waiting list as I knew this would be around a year long anyway. Disappointingly they asked that we re refer him when he was 18 months again.

When he turned 18 months we still had the same concerns if not more but the referral was accepted this time however we were told he would not be seen until he was 2.5yo (September 2021). Although we are happy his referral has now been accepted we are disappointed at how long we have to wait for him to be seen despite raising concerns after his 1st birthday. I feel that 1.5 years later is a long time to be without seeing a pediatrician. We have tried to phone the pediatrician a few times for advise for our son meantime as we keep being told that earlier intervention is best but we are struggling to ever get a response for them.