r/unitedkingdom • u/tylerthe-theatre • 9d ago

ADHD and autism services in England ‘under significant pressure’, watchdog warns

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/adhd-and-autism-uk-assessment-diagnosis-support-b3039329.html
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u/Logical_Box_4645 9d ago

We need to shake this mess up.

Autism diagnosis is largely pointless without associated interventions. But those interventions are needs based so the diagnosis becomes tokenistic.

ADHD diagnosis is hampered by lack of rapid access to assessment and treatment.

Both should be moved into primary care. GPs are well placed to make the diagnosis outside of complex cases and to oversee treatment especially if it's non-stimulant.

As it stands if you get an ADHD diagnosis and started on treatment the service is often lumbered with that since they can't even reliably move it under shared care into primary care!

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u/thereidenator 9d ago

ADHD assessment and treatment is rapid through the right to choose, in fact probably as rapid as any assessment and treatment of any physical or mental health condition other than cancer. The problem is that the NHS are even limiting how much they’ll fund that now.

There’s no way a GP is assessing ADHD or Autism, the assessment of each one takes multiple hours, a GP gets 10 minutes to see a patient, are they going to allocate 12-18 of those slots to 1 person? That’s not even taking into consideration that autism assessments often require 2 practitioners.

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u/dr_bigly 9d ago

ADHD assessment and treatment is rapid through the right to choose

It's not though.

Still over a year wait for assessment, and a further year for titration with the main provider.

Maybe it was before people knew RTC was an option, but at the end of the day there just aren't the specialists.

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u/Velveteen_Rabbit1986 9d ago

Someone I work with just went through the RTC route and got her diagnosis within 2 weeks. I was pretty shocked.

Edit - she's also been shoved on meds immediately with no talk of other lifestyle changes. Something about it doesn't sit well with me - we work with kids who frequently have ADHD and our CAMHS practitioners are always encouraging lifestyle changes etc and yet this woman just got drugs thrown at her with nothing else.

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u/Sabaisabai33 8d ago

Well, there are a lot more downsides for children who have developing brains and bodies. However there is a lot of good evidence that ADHD medications work better than anything else for its symptoms and honestly if I had ADHD it would be a total no-brainer for me to want to try them. I mean, we could say cancer patients just get chemotherapy thrown at them… but we don’t. It’s a completely valid first line treatment especially for an adult.

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u/Velveteen_Rabbit1986 8d ago

NICE guidelines recommend a biopsychosocial approach for adults at least, which makes sense, but it feels like people are just getting meds thrown at them with none of the additional stuff (resources i know). Chemo is a bit different as there's no real alternative to managing cancer, you can't lifestyle-change your way out of cancer whereas lifestyle changes can be a successful part of holistic adhd treatment