Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of waiting times for ADHD assessments in Halton.

There is, at present, no single, established dataset that can be used to monitor waiting times for the assessment and diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) nationally, or for individual organisations or geographies in England.  Although the data requested is not held centrally, it may be held locally by individual National Health Service trusts or commissioners.

We are supporting a taskforce that NHS England has established to look at ADHD service provision and its impact on patient experience. The taskforce is bringing together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the NHS, education, and justice, to better understand the challenges affecting people with ADHD, including timely access to services and support.

Alongside the work of the taskforce, NHS England will continue to develop a national ADHD data improvement plan, carry out more detailed work to understand the provider and commissioning landscape, and capture examples from local health systems which are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services, to ensure best practice is captured and shared across the system.