ADHD UK is “under-recognised, under-diagnosed and under-treated” according to a June 2025 report by the NHS. Yet health secretary Wes Streeting has now commissioned a review into whether neurodevelopmental conditions are overdiagnosed, with the clear aim of cutting the benefits bill.
The “Report of the Independent ADHD Taskforce, Part 1” was compiled by a team of 40 people. These include:
- Prof Tamsin Jane Ford – Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Head of Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, plus six other professors.
- Adrian James, Medical Director for Mental Health and Neurodiversity, NHS England
- Dr Sunil Gupta – GP Clinical Adviser, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
- James Brown – Founder, ADHD adultUK and Associate Professor in Biosciences, Aston University
- Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England
The team includes many “Experts by Experience” who live with ADHD or support others who do.
The report specifically addresses the question of whether ADHD is under or overdiagnosed in the UK.
It found that the UK has much lower recognition and treatment rates of ADHD compared with other European countries. Although there has been an increased recognition of ADHD by health services, this is still a great deal lower than the actual rates of 3-5% in the population. Just 2.6% of boys and 0.67% of girls are identified, whilst amongst adults it is 0.74% in men and 0.72% in women.
For those who have been diagnosed with ADHD, fewer than one-third of children have contact with any type of mental health service, and only 15–25% of adults and children receive medication”.
Such low treatment rates matter, because trials have shown that 70-90% of people with ADHD will benefit from medication.
The report found no good evidence on the percentage of people who have self-diagnosed using social media and who then go on to meet, or not meet, diagnostic criteria after a high quality assessment.
In other words, stories about people self-diagnosing using TikTok and then going on to get a formal diagnosis and claiming PIP are just that: stories. No-one has produced any reliable evidence to back up tabloid hate-tales.
And in reality, anyone watching a TikTok video now would have a long wait for an NHS diagnosis: up to 4+ years for children, up to 8+ years for adults according to the report.
The report also points out that ADHD rarely exists in isolation, instead it generally occurs alongside, autism, anxiety depression, bipolar disorder and other conditions.
The cost to society of not effectively identifying and treating ADHD in childhood is estimated to be £17 billion per year.
These are the result of such issues as “higher risks of educational failure, not in education, employment or training (NEET), long-term unemployment, welfare costs, early entry into the criminal justice system, family breakdown, chronic mental health problems, self-harm, suicide, substance misuse, obesity, chronic physical illnesses (e.g. cardiovascular disease) and premature mortality”.
Yet, in the face of all the evidence from what ought to be the most trusted of sources that ADHD is underdiagnosed and that this has severe implications for individuals and society more generally, Wes Streeting has decide to carry out a review of whether mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions are being overdiagnosed.
The review, yet to be officially unveiled, comes after Streeting himself claimed that there was an overdiagnosis of mental health conditions.
We would expect that, on the basis of such up-to-date and high quality evidence, Streeting will remove ADHD from the list of conditions to be looked into by his review, as the answer is already crystal clear
If he does not, then the suspicion that this review is not about establishing the truth, it is about cutting the benefits bill, will only grow.
You can read the “Report of the Independent ADHD Taskforce, Part 1” here.
