Data

NHS adult ADHD assessment waiting times

There is no single clean national feed for adult ADHD assessment waiting times in the UK. The published evidence is patchy: NHS England counted up to 735,157 open referrals that may be for an ADHD assessment in England in December 2025, while Freedom of Information requests have shown individual adult waits ranging from 12 weeks at one trust to about 8.5 years at another, and Right to Choose providers publish their own estimates of 8 months upward. This page is a curated tracker of those published figures, each attributed to its named source, not a live national measure.

Information only, not medical advice and not a diagnosis. Waiting figures show the published range across areas and providers, not your individual wait, and only a registered clinician can assess or diagnose ADHD. If cost or delay is a worry, the NHS route, including Right to Choose, is free at the point of use. Speak to your GP about your options.

Coverage gaps (what we could not source)

We will only publish a figure we can attach to a named primary source. The following are real gaps in the public data rather than numbers we have chosen to leave out, and we would rather say so than invent them:

• A clean, confirmed national count of adults specifically waiting for an ADHD assessment, and how long they have waited. NHS England’s figure is open referrals that may be for assessment, all ages, and it warns that submissions from February 2025 are not directly comparable with earlier months. __TODO_MORE_DATA__
• A current, complete trust-by-trust or ICB-by-ICB table of adult assessment waits. The trust-level numbers we have are from one-off FOI requests covering only the bodies that responded, the most comprehensive of which dates to October 2023. __TODO_MORE_DATA__
• Comparable figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the same basis as England. The FOI data touches Wales (the 8.5-year individual wait), but there is no consistent four-nation series. __TODO_MORE_DATA__
• An independently verified Right to Choose wait by provider and ICB. The Right to Choose figures here are the providers’ own published estimates, which change often and are capped or paused in some areas. __TODO_MORE_DATA__

The same figures as plain text

Charts and styled tables can be hard for automated tools and AI systems to read, so here is the full tracker as a flat Markdown table you can copy. Each figure keeps its source.

| Figure | What it measures | Geography | Period | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Up to 735,157 | open referrals that may be for an ADHD assessment (562,480 in the Mental Health Services Dataset plus up to 172,677 in the Community Health Services SitRep) | England | December 2025 | NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information (released 26 Feb 2026) |
| Up to 18,915 | new referrals received in a single month that may be for an ADHD assessment, an increase of 17.3% on December 2024 | England | December 2025 | NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information (released 26 Feb 2026) |
| About 2,498,000 | people estimated to have ADHD, diagnosed and undiagnosed, which the publication uses as the demand backdrop for the waiting list | England | February 2026 estimate | NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information (released 26 Feb 2026) |
| Up to 8+ years (adults); 40% waiting 2+ years | reported waiting times for an adult ADHD assessment, with a national survey finding that 40% of respondents reported waits of two years or more | England | Independent ADHD Taskforce Part 1, published 20 June 2025 | NHS England, Report of the independent ADHD Taskforce: Part 1 |
| 2.26 million (1.55 million adults) | people who had an open referral with NHS mental health services at the end of the month, of whom the majority (1.55 million) had an open referral with adult mental health services. This is the whole secondary mental health caseload, not an ADHD figure; ADHD is not separately identified in this dataset, and from April 2026 the measure was renamed from people in contact with services to people with an open referral | England | End of April 2026 | NHS England Digital, Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance April 2026 |
| 294,771 | people who had an open referral with learning disabilities and autism services at the end of the month. This is a broader neurodevelopmental services count and does not isolate ADHD, which the publication does not report as a separate line | England | End of April 2026 | NHS England Digital, Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance April 2026 |
| 550 weeks (about 10.5 years) | longest quoted adult wait for an ADHD assessment at a single trust, from FOI responses | Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust | FOI data, collected to October 2023 | ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report |
| 443 weeks (about 8.5 years) | the longest any individual adult had actually been waiting for an assessment at the point of the FOI | Hywel Dda University Health Board, Wales | FOI data, collected to October 2023 | ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report |
| 12 weeks | shortest quoted adult wait for an ADHD assessment among responding trusts, showing how wide the variation is | Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust | FOI data, collected to October 2023 | ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report |
| 19,000 confirmed; about 90,000 extrapolated | adults on ADHD assessment waiting lists across responding boards, with the higher figure ADHD UK extrapolated to account for non-responding boards | UK (responding Integrated Health Boards) | FOI data, collected to October 2023 | ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report |
| 32% of adults screened out | share of adult referrals screened out before assessment (33% of women, 29% of men), pointing to a referral filter that varies sharply by area | UK (responding Integrated Health Boards) | FOI data, collected to October 2023 | ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report |
| 618 days (about 20 months) | average wait for an adult ADHD assessment at one trust, released in response to a Freedom of Information request and reported by the BBC | Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust | FOI response, reported June 2025 | BBC News (FOI to Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust) |
| 32 to 40 weeks (8 to 10 months) | provider-published estimate for an adult ADHD initial assessment via NHS Right to Choose, from the point of GP referral (titration estimated at 44 to 52 weeks) | England, Right to Choose | Page last updated 3 June 2026 | Psychiatry-UK, waiting times update |
| 12 weeks minimum to 2+ years | provider-published projected waits that vary by Integrated Care Board, from a minimum of 12 weeks (average 48 weeks) in one area to 2+ years in several others | England, Right to Choose (by ICB) | Page last updated 9 June 2026 | ADHD360, Right to Choose wait times and ICB allowances |

Methodology and coverage note

• What this is. A curated tracker of figures that have already been published by a named source. It is not a live national feed and not an official statistic. We do not produce any of the underlying numbers.
• Inclusion rule. A figure is included only if we can attribute it to a named primary source (NHS England, an NHS trust FOI, a charity FOI analysis, a Right to Choose provider’s own page, or established reporting of an FOI) and record the period it covers. We never estimate a figure ourselves or present a private clinic’s marketing number as an NHS wait.
• Comparability. The rows are not directly comparable. They use different definitions of an assessment, cover different geographies and dates, and come from different collection methods. Read them as a range, not a league table.
• Sources. Primary sources are listed below and linked on every row. The fullest FOI dataset is ADHD UK’s October 2023 report; the national referral counts are NHS England Digital’s ADHD Management Information; the Right to Choose figures are providers’ own published estimates.
• Updates. Published 2026-06-14, last verified 15 June 2026. We refresh rows when a source updates, and we keep the access date on each so you can see how current each figure is.

Primary sources

• NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information (Feb 2026 release)
• NHS England, Report of the independent ADHD Taskforce: Part 1 (20 Jun 2025)
• ADHD UK, NHS ADHD Assessment Waiting Lists report (FOI, Oct 2023)
• BBC News, average 618-day wait for adult ADHD assessment (FOI, Jun 2025)
• NHS England Digital, Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance April 2026 (released 11 Jun 2026)
• Nuffield Trust, Access to services for autism and ADHD
• Psychiatry-UK, Right to Choose waiting times
• ADHD360, Right to Choose wait times and ICB allowances

What this means if you are waiting

Long and uneven waits are the reason many people look at the NHS Right to Choose route or a private assessment. Before you pay for anything, our NHS vs Right to Choose vs private comparison puts cost and typical wait side by side, the do-you-need-to-pay router points you to the cheapest legitimate route, and our wider ADHD statistics page sets these waits in context.

Frequently asked questions