Care Opinion

ADHD adult assessments and waiting times

Posted By KMM85

"ADHD adult assessments and waiting times"

About: Mental Health Services / Adult Mental Health Services

(as a service user),

My story is more a plea for NHS Lanarkshire to do better. I am utterly distraught and really struggling because I am awaiting an assessment and was told it would be 12 weeks max and then I would hear something,  I have chased this up and granted it has been approx 18 weeks now, but have since been informed it could be several years before I get an assessment. 

The sad part for me is that I was diagnosed and medicated for hyperactivity as a child, but the notes and records from that time weren't kept as wonderfully as they are now. What's more, the belief back then was that kids grow out of it.

Fast forward to now and various triggers later I am now unable to mask the ADHD, have been very clear with my own GP, CPN re my mental health and at one point I was having suicidal thoughts and it took them 3 weeks to respond (luckily a kind health visitor talked me down long before they responded). I have asked for help to manage and just get sent links to external resources and offered anti-depressants. However, as someone who has spent over a decade being told it's anxiety/depression,  I now feel being medicated for the wrong thing will just make things worse.

While I understand there is understaffing, we see 1000s of medical professionals qualify every year, so why on earth aren't the NHS boards recruiting the posts that are understaffed? I have been told this is why it is taking years to see patients. But I believe then that these things need to be outsourced. 

Right now the impact for people like me who are struggling and have been their whole life due to what I feel is misinformation and misdiagnosis is that our work suffers, our ability to manage finances suffers, socially we suffer, and most heartbreakingly for me is that my parenting suffers! 

This is really a plea for NHS Lanarkshire and the Scottish government to please work on your waiting lists, please outsource where possible and help people regain control with the right help support available.  We all know it would be possible, and the excuses are getting old now.

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Responses

Response from Marie Rooney, Associate Director of Nursing, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Addictions, North Lanarkshire Health & Social Care 15 months ago
Marie Rooney
Associate Director of Nursing, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Addictions,
North Lanarkshire Health & Social Care

Professional lead for nursing

Submitted on 04/09/2023 at 10:22
Published on Care Opinion at 10:39

I'm so sorry to hear about your issues accessing help.

Can you let me know which area in Lanarkshire you have been referred to, and I will look into you case, please?

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Update posted by KMM85 (a service user)

Hi,

I am based in North Lanarkshire and was advised it was the community mental health team based in Motherwell as far as I know. thank you for looking into this, I am aware I am not the only person waiting but I do believe wait times are getting out of hand.

Update posted by KMM85 (a service user)

Hi,

I know it has only been 3 weeks since you said you would look into this, but I still haven't had a letter to acknowledge the referral let alone give me an indication that I am on a waiting list to be seen.

In the meantime, like every person waiting to be seen, this impacts on every aspect of my life. I saw my childhood notes which are illegible, but also as expected the documentation was poor in the 80s and 90s. I was medicated with a sedative as a child for this, and as an adult I have been told for years I have depression and anxiety. To learn that actually it is more likely these could just be how my brain responded to having unmanaged ADHD is difficult. Especially in the last few years when it has resulted in a mental breakdown, losing everything and having to rebuild from there.

I feel the NHS could be more helpful, instead of just giving links to websites that may be useful while I wait. I feel they aren't useful and all support is oversubscribed because of the waiting lists and unable to actually assist. Any assistance is again just, here is more literature about ADHD, read that and try to cope as best you can. GP can only offer antidepressants which mask and aren't useful.

I just need to know how long I am likely to wait and where the letter of acknowledgement is.

Response from Louise Lawrie, Service Manager - Motherwell Locality, North Lanarkshire Health & Social Care Partnership 14 months ago
Louise Lawrie
Service Manager - Motherwell Locality,
North Lanarkshire Health & Social Care Partnership

Submitted on 09/10/2023 at 11:05
Published on Care Opinion at 11:05

picture of Louise Lawrie

Hi KMM85,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your post, we wanted to ensure your story reached the right people and this has caused a delay in getting back to you.

Thank you for taking the time to share your detailed experience with us. I am so sorry that you are suffering such difficulties while awaiting assessment. We are very aware as a service and organisation that waiting times for ADHD assessments are much longer than we would like. Unfortunately, we are experiencing a steep increase in demand for this service and we are trying to manage this as timely and sensitively as possible. We are working really hard to see people as soon as possible and we will be in touch to offer you an appointment as soon as we can facilitate this. We are also working on improving the current model and hope that this will bring improvements to the waiting times in the future.

In your initial care opinion post you told us about a situation where you were having suicidal thoughts. You mention a delay in response from your CPN. This delay is not normally what we would expect from our service and I am very sorry that you experienced this at what was clearly a very distressing time for you.

Sometimes we don’t get things right and we need to ensure we learn from these occasions so we can improve our services going forward. I would really like the opportunity to look into this particular incident further so we can understand what happened and make improvements where needed. If you are happy for me to do this then can I ask that you contact our patient affairs department with your details at PatientAffairs.PrimaryCare@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk This will allow me to review this incident in more detail.

I am aware I have been unable to offer you answers in relation to your assessment but I hope this response offers some reassurance that your feedback is very important to us.

Thank you and best wishes to you for the future.

Louise Lawrie

Service Manager

Motherwell Locality

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