‘Huge inconsistencies’ in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) services across the North has been raised at Stormont with the end of new referrals in the Western Trust last year referenced. - video Dailymotion

Derry Journal

‘Huge inconsistencies’ in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) services across the North has been raised at Stormont with the end of new referrals in the Western Trust last year referenced.

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00:00says 4,000 children will have a diagnosis moving into adult services and 5,000 adults per trust

00:10then are effectively not receiving treatment that they need at the minute. So we have 4,000

00:17children per trust and 5,000 adults per trust who are not receiving treatment that they would need

00:22and that increases by 300 to 450 a year. So there's a shocking amount of people across

00:29Northern Ireland that are not being treated for this condition based on those estimated figures

00:35that you've given us. We're talking about thousands and thousands of people here

00:41who are not being treated, not being diagnosed or treated for this condition.

00:48Certainly I've had meetings with ADD and I as well and my colleague Peter McReynolds who's

00:52chair of the APG on ADHD. He's had meetings with groups and families across Northern Ireland and

01:00has developed a petition calling for a commissioning of a service. It does seem that

01:05while the report's quite clear there is no real service in Northern Ireland. I know even with the

01:10small amounts of services available there's a huge inconsistencies across Northern Ireland. It's

01:16very much a definition of a postcode lottery for these thousands and thousands of people and

01:22particularly I think as a Western trust I think there's nothing at all. One of the main

01:27points that I wanted to ask you as well, if the first line treatment I think you alluded to it

01:32there just earlier on, if the first line treatment for children is early intervention and prevention

01:37services on a waiting list that is years long, how do you have those two things meet?

01:44If we want to intervene early and we want to have prevention services before

01:50medication, how do you wait for that service? Well certainly in terms of early intervention we

01:56have a system established across Northern Ireland where we have family support hubs

02:00and these family support hubs are networks of voluntary community and statutory organisations

02:04that provide early intervention support and families that require support are referred to

02:10the hubs and hubs will identify a support service that's suitable for their needs.

02:16So we have an embryonic, we have that support service. We also have a series of what we call

02:22locality planning groups across Northern Ireland that also work with local communities around

02:27particular individual pressure points in order to see how organisations and services can work

02:32better together. So we do have a system there we feel we can build on. I would acknowledge

02:37probably the biggest issue we have and the chair referred to it earlier on is that

02:42the success of the family support hubs is very much built on the community and voluntary sector

02:47and they are under considerable pressure at the moment in terms of funding but we do find that

02:51that system works well. It works well to link families with support. It's valued by families

02:56and it's valued by providers but I do take your earlier point that the service has grown,

03:03the direct service has grown organically and certainly our work certainly backs up what

03:08you're saying is that it's not consistent across the trusts and it does leave particularly

03:13significant gaps in certain areas.

‘Huge inconsistencies’ in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) services across the North has been raised at Stormont with the end of new referrals in the Western Trust last year referenced.

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