Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of trends in waiting times for ADHD assessments in (a) children and (b) adults in the last five years; and what steps he is taking to reduce these delays.

Lord Darzi’s independent review of the National Health Service, published in September 2024, highlighted the severe delays for accessing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments and that demand for assessments for ADHD has grown significantly in recent years.

NHS England has established an ADHD taskforce which is bringing together those with lived experience with experts from the NHS, education, charity and justice sectors to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including in accessing services and support. An interim is expected to be published shortly, with the final report expected in summer 2025.

For the first time, NHS England published management information on ADHD waits at a national level on 29 May 2025 as part of its ADHD data improvement plan; it will soon release technical guidance to integrated care boards (ICBs) to improve recording of ADHD data, with a view to improving the quality of ADHD waits data. NHS England has also captured examples from ICBs who are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services and is using this information to support systems to tackle ADHD waiting lists and provide support to address people’s needs.