NHS can't cope with 'avalanche' of autism and ADHD diagnoses, warn experts amid ... trends now
There must be a 'radical rethink' of how autism and ADHD are assessed and treated if the NHS is to cope with soaring demand for care, a report says.
Doctors are referring five-times more patients for autism assessments than in 2019, while the number prescribed medication for ADHD is up 51 per cent.
Health leaders warn the NHS has been overwhelmed by the 'extraordinary, unpredicted and unprecedented' rise in demand for these services.
And they say it is 'impossible to imagine' how the NHS can expand fast enough to cope with the rise.
The Nuffield Trust think tank, which produced the report, says the growth in demand has been fuelled by 'changing social attitudes and better awareness'.
Fascinating graphs show how ADHD prescriptions have risen over time, with the patient demographic shifting from children to adults with women in particular now driving the increase
Sheridan Smith, 42, has recently revealed she has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (pictured in 2023). The 42-year-old, who shot to fame on The Royle Family as Antony 's girlfriend Emma, told Vogue that it has helped her 'make sense of a lot of things' in her life and better understand her 'brain's background noise'
The booming market is thought to have been fuelled by celebrities such as model Katie Price and Love Island star Olivia Attwood (pictured) talking about their ADHD ordeal and waits of up to ten years for an assessment on the NHS
And it calls for a 'whole-system approach' to neurodiversity across education, society and the health service.
It comes after figures published by NHS Digital last month revealed the number of patients waiting for an autism assessment in England is at its highest level since current data started in April 2019.
Some 172,040 people were on waiting lists as of December 2023, up from 117,020 a year earlier and more than five times the 32,220 recorded in December 2019.
Although the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommends people with suspected autism should be diagnosed within three months of a referral, some 147,070 patients had been waiting at least 13 weeks in December, more than six times the 24,250 in December 2019.
People who had a first appointment for suspected autism between October and December last year had waited an average of over nine months to be seen following their referral.
This compares to four months during the same period in 2019.
Meanwhile, there was a 51 per cent increase in the number of patients prescribed medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) over the same period.
Within this, there
