Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has reviewed the success of shared care agreements with private providers when it comes to ADHD patient cases.

Shared care within the National Health Service refers to a voluntary arrangement whereby a specialist may transfer responsibility for aspects of a patient’s care, such as prescription of medication, to the patient’s general practitioner (GP). Decisions regarding shared care agreements are made locally, and the General Medical Council has made it clear that GPs are not contractually obliged to enter shared care agreements and may decline requests on clinical or capacity grounds.

No specific review has been made of the success of shared care agreements with private providers for patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.