If you're currently waiting for an ADHD or autism assessment on the NHS, you may have just been given some genuinely bad news — and if you haven't heard yet, you're about to.
Four NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England have introduced minimum two-year waiting periods before patients can even be seen for an ADHD or autism assessment. West Yorkshire ICB, which covers around 2.4 million people, is one of the areas leading the change. The reasoning given isn't a lack of demand — quite the opposite. It's the cost of meeting that demand that ICBs say has become unsustainable.
How did we get here?
This isn't a sudden blip. Referrals for ADHD and autism assessments have been climbing sharply for six years running, and the NHS simply hasn't been able to keep pace. The numbers make for grim reading:
- Nearly 960,000 people in England are currently on ADHD assessment waiting lists
- Around 295,000 people are waiting for an autism assessment
- The average wait is already over a year — 64 weeks, in fact
- And now, in some areas, that's being replaced with a hard floor of two years minimum, regardless of how urgent your situation is
Patient advocacy groups haven't held back. ADHD UK has called the policy "heartless and dangerous," warning that these delays put children's education at risk, cut people off from support they need to function day to day, and — in the worst cases — could contribute to mental health crises.
Why this matters more than just "a longer queue"
A minimum wait isn't the same as a long queue you're already in. It means that even if you're referred today, the system is telling you upfront: don't expect to be seen for two years, full stop. For a child struggling at school, an adult trying to keep a job together, or anyone whose daily life is genuinely harder without a diagnosis and the support that comes with it, two years is an incredibly long time to be told "wait and see."
And this is happening against the backdrop of a government-commissioned independent review into demand for mental health, ADHD and autism services, expected to report back this month. So the system itself is currently under review at the exact moment it's tightening the door on new patients — which tells you a lot about how strained things really are.
So what can you actually do about it?
If you're in one of the affected areas — or you suspect your own ICB might follow suit — the honest answer is that waiting it out isn't your only option.
You have the legal right to choose where you're assessed. Under the NHS Right to Choose policy, you're not obliged to sit on your local ICB's waiting list if there's a provider elsewhere with shorter waits who can take NHS-funded referrals. We've written a full guide on exactly how this works and how to use it: NHS Right to Choose for ADHD and Autism Assessments.
If you'd rather go private, or want to compare providers directly, our two guides walk through how to find and vet a provider near you:
- Autism Assessment Near Me: How to Find a Provider in the UK
- ADHD Assessment Near Me: How to Find a Provider in the UK
The bigger picture
None of this is really about individual ICBs being difficult. It's what happens when a huge, genuine rise in people seeking help meets a system that hasn't been resourced to match it. Whether the government's review leads to real investment or just more of the same remains to be seen — but in the meantime, the practical reality is that people need answers now, not in two years.
If you're stuck on a list with no clear end in sight, it's worth knowing that Right to Choose and private routes exist precisely for moments like this. You don't have to just wait.