ADHD, or not....
-
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-65534449
"A leading NHS consultant psychiatrist has met me in person and concluded I don't have ADHD - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet, after shorter assessments online, three private clinics have told me I do - and offered me powerful medication."
"You fit the criteria for ADHD very well. You'll have it in writing, officially that you have been diagnosed. There is no expiration date for this. You were diagnosed for life," says the psychologist through the computer screen, as I sit at my kitchen table.
I am working undercover, using my middle name James, to investigate private clinics that can offer ADHD assessments at a time when NHS waiting times have risen, in some areas, to more than five years.
The assessment over Zoom, with a clinic called Harley Psychiatrists, costs £685 and takes 45 minutes. As my assessor asks her quick-fire questions, she appears to be slouched on a sofa wearing a tracksuit top.
"Did I have problems concentrating at school?"
I try my best to answer but the screen keeps wobbling as she struggles to get comfortable. The whole time she plays with her hair and I get the sense she isn't focusing completely.
At the end, she diagnoses me with ADHD - a lifelong condition. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder, with symptoms falling into two categories - inattentiveness, plus hyperactivity and impulsiveness.
Stunned, all I can say back to my assessor is: "It's a lot to take in."
Things were very different when I met Dr Mike Smith, a consultant psychiatrist who leads a specialist adult ADHD service in the NHS. I told him about my investigation and he said he also had concerns about how some private providers were operating. He agreed to show me how an assessment should be carried out.
.
.
"I can't see any evidence you've got any serious problem with your concentration, your hyper-activity, or your level of activity, or impulsivity," Dr Smith told me, after more than three gruelling hours."You do not have ADHD."
-
-
@Doctor-Phibes said in ADHD, or not....:
@Mik said in ADHD, or not....:
Pill mills.
Yeah, and the pills can be resold for fun and profit.
It's not just that. ADHD and Autism has joined the social equity bandwagon. And just like transgenderism, ADHD is now being way overdiagnosed.
