Eight-year ADHD decline in most parts of UK, BBC finds – BBC News

Louise Nichols had been waiting for two years. When told about the statistics the BBC obtained about staying in Sheffield, she said “none” and described it as devastating.

“Probably, it’s not going to happen — I’m not going to get an appraisal,” she said.

Katie Drinkwater ended up paying for a private diagnosis after struggling with symptoms since childhood. Because of that, she thought at one point that the degree in health and social care would fail.

Suicidal impulses are not usually seen as a symptom of ADHD. However, Katie struggled with her mental health while on the waiting list.

“Because of the stress and trauma of navigating a world I didn’t understand, I personally tried to take my own life twice before my diagnosis,” she says.

Katie says the diagnosis has made a huge difference to her.

This suggests that ADHD can be treated with medication and therapy. Drugs, mostly stimulants, increase brain activity, especially the parts that control attention and behavior.

Therapy focuses on giving people skills to live with the condition, building coping strategies.

Rob Reiss and Nelly Naylor chose another approach in their quest to be seen.

Patients have legal rights in cases where they have to wait too long to request another service for assessment.

It took a few months to see Rob and Nellie over a year.

Nellie describes it as “life-changing” and says it has validated her “whole life and existence”. Rob says he has stopped criticizing and is more productive.

Dr Helen Krimlisk, Sheffield Trust’s executive medical director, said: “We regret that we are not providing a good enough service to people seeking help for STIs. We have prioritized treating individuals with a valid assessment rather than creating new assessments.”

She added that people can also be seen for STD assessment in community services and primary care. The Trust was unable to provide data to confirm this.

There is no official list of adult ADHD service providers in the UK, but the BBC understands there are 70. Sixty-six people responded to our request for information.

Data on how long people wait to be assessed for ADHD are not centrally reported. BBC Verify calculated the backlog using data from 44 trusts and health boards who told us both their waiting lists and how many assessments they carried out in 2023. In 24 services it will take eight years or more to clear their backlog.

Statistically, only two trusts take less than a year to see all the patients on their waiting list. They are Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and North East London NHS Foundation Trust, both of which told us they have around 500 patients waiting to be assessed.

Some 53 services provided data on the numbers on waiting lists – meaning an underestimate of the UK-wide total of 196,000 on waiting lists.

Thea Stein, chief executive of the health think tank the Nuffield Trust, said she had never seen anything like the growth in demand for ADHD services.

She argues that the time has come for a radical solution because thousands and thousands of people are waiting to be “victimized”.

“We are seeing more people than ever before seeking support from ADHD services, which are struggling to meet this demand,” the Royal College of Psychiatrists told the BBC.

All four UK governments say they are working to improve matters.

NHS England said it had “launched an independent expert task force to investigate the challenges facing ADHD services and help them manage the rising number of referrals.”

Meanwhile, there is no clear solution.

The BBC has spoken to several NHS trusts. Many did not want to go on the record, but some suggest that GPs could take over the assessment and treatment of STDs – something the Royal College of Physicians strongly opposes.

“The answer cannot be to refer these patients back to routine care.”

Additional reporting by Elena Bailey

The BBC collected the data using FOI requests to NHS trusts and health boards across the UK, mostly in late March 2024.

There is no central list of organizations providing adult ADHD assessments for the NHS in England. After searching reliable websites (except those that clearly did not run services, such as ambulance trusts) or contacting press offices, the BBC sent FOI to 112 providers where it was confirmed they ran a service – or it was unclear.

The regression calculated using the waiting list is theoretical depending on the number of assessments and confidence. It does not indicate how long patients will have to wait in each area, but illustrates the scale of the pressure NHS services are facing.