‘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.