July 17, 2023, Guardian: UK children waiting 16 months on average for ADHD and autism screening – study https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/17/uk-children-waiting-16-months-on-average-for-adhd-and-autism-screening-study
Exclusive: Belfast has worst data, with typical wait of five years to be seen, against Nice guidance of 13-week maximum.
Children with suspected ADHD and autism are waiting as long as seven years for treatment on the NHS, as the health service struggles to manage a surge in demand during a crisis in child mental health.
Experts said “inhumane” waits are putting a generation of neurodiverse children at risk of mental illness as they are “pushed to the back of a very long queue” for children and adolescent mental health services (Camhs).
UK children with suspected neurodevelopmental conditions faced an average waiting time of one year and four months for an initial screening in 2022, more than three times longer than the average wait for all Camhs services, according to research carried out by the House magazine and shared with the Guardian….
The research also revealed a postcode lottery. Children with suspected ADHD in Belfast are waiting an average of five years for an initial appointment, and the longest wait for neurodevelopmental treatment was seven years. The longest wait for a child in Oxford was five years and 14 weeks. Coventry and Warwickshire had the worst record in England – an average wait of 142 weeks for all neuro first appointments.
An Oxford health trust spokesperson said: “The number and complexity of referrals to our services have increased significantly and our funding has not increased.”…
“Yet we are hearing again and again that unless a child is at serious risk of harm they are not a priority, they are pushed to the back of a very long queue,” he said. “It is inhumane to make children wait until they are suicidal before helping them.”
He said children’s futures were being blighted by a lack of diagnosis and help. “Diagnosis can bring enlightenment, essential support and legal protection to help these children negotiate their way through life,” Shelford said. “Denying them this is the casual cruelty of the system. It leaves them vulnerable to crime, poor mental health, addiction and family breakdown.”
The House asked 74 UK trusts about waiting times for children with suspected neurodevelopmental conditions: 58 responded, with 31 providing figures for 2022. Twelve said they did not collect the data and many were unable to file complete figures on all questions, said the publication.
The figures collected showed referrals rose by 226% between 2017 and 2022. New NHS data has revealed that across all age groups 140,000 people were waiting for an autism assessment in England in December 2022 – a 40% increase in one year….
She added that Scotland and Wales now had “national service specifications” for children with neurodevelopmental conditions, which set out seven standards of care for neurodivergent children, while NHS England did not. “If we don’t understand what the problem is, we can’t track change. We should be learning from areas that are doing this well,” she said….
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