ICBs need to ensure there is support for patients on the ADHD waiting list, a report by the ADHD taskforce has concluded.
The report from the taskforce, which was commissioned by NHS England last year, said that waiting times for NHS ADHD services have escalated and are ‘unacceptably long’.
It urged ICBs to improve support to those on the waiting lists and consider screening those waiting to prioritise the most urgent cases.
It pushed back on the idea that ADHD was over diagnosed, as ‘recognised rates of ADHD are lower than the expected prevalence of ADHD’, meaning ‘demand on services is very likely to continue to rise’.
The report recommended that general practice take a greater role in the management of the condition, similar to diabetes care.
It said that treatment and assessment in England are currently provided by highly specialised, secondary care clinicians and that the inability to access services has led to the growth in use of private providers that are not regulated.
‘We need to shift rapidly to accessible, regulated and generalist models of care in the community, including primary care and other sectors outside the NHS,’ the report recommended.
It said that NICE should reconsider its stance on ADHD requiring highly specialised workforce for diagnosis and should allow for greater involvement of primary care.
It also suggested ICSs and neighbourhood health services should work with other local services to join up expertise across different types of neurodivergence/ neurodevelopmental disorders.
‘Such pathways need to operate across all age groups and involve different settings of care and intensity of support (inclusive of primary and secondary care, local authority, VCSE (voluntary, community and social enterprise) and, where needed, private providers),’ the report said.
It called for a ‘stepped care model’ which would involve different intensities of support for possible ADHD.
Digitalisation
The report also looked at how digitalisation could impact ADHD services and said that the 10-year plan should prioritise this.
‘Administrative data on ADHD in England are limited, poor quality and do not link across systems. This leads to duplication or multiplication of the same tasks for clinicians and patients,’ it said.
‘We support the recommendation in the Darzi review to harness technology to simplify and speed up clinical processes and systematically gather data on ADHD across England. This will reduce the burden on clinicians and free their time to focus on what matters – clinical care as well as enable evidence-informed planning and costing of services.’
Professor Anita Thapar, chair of the ADHD Taskforce, said: ‘I am grateful to everyone involved in the taskforce for their hard work putting this interim report together.
‘The recommendations put forward by the taskforce will require action across government and cross-sector organisations to make the necessary changes to improve the lives of people with ADHD. We need to get this right, to make sure people get early diagnosis and support, not just in the NHS but across society.’
Dr Adrian James, NHS England’s medical director for mental health and neurodiversity, said: ‘We know that too many people with ADHD have been waiting for too long for support, which is why we launched the taskforce last year to help respond to the significant growth in the need for care.
‘It is clear that much more needs to be done to improve ADHD assessment and care in England and ensure people can get a timely diagnosis, and we welcome the findings from the interim report, and look forward to its final conclusions later this year.’
A report by the King’s Fund also recommended better data collection on ADHD earlier this month. It said this was needed to improve services.
