---
title: "Jersey children waiting 70 weeks for ADHD assessment"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/jersey-children-70-week-adhd-assessment-wait/
published: 2026-10-12T10:31:02+00:00
modified: 2026-10-12T10:31:02+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["News"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/jersey-children-70-week-adhd-assessment-wait-1024x572.webp
summary: "Jersey's child ADHD waiting list stands at 70 weeks, with 771 children already on treatment and 1,254 adults still awaiting diagnosis."
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# Jersey children waiting 70 weeks for ADHD assessment

**In brief:** Jersey’s director of mental health has described the 70-week waiting list for child ADHD assessments as the “biggest pressure” on child mental health services. More than 770 children are already on ADHD treatment, and the adult waiting list stands at over 1,250. Officials are weighing outsourcing as one possible solution, but warn that funding pressures make every option difficult.

## Children waiting over a year for assessment

The Jersey Evening Post reports that Dr Darren Bowring, director of mental health and wellbeing, has confirmed that waiting times for a neurodevelopmental assessment currently stand at “around 70 weeks,” a figure he acknowledged “we would like to be lower.” The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) has approximately 1,800 children open to it, of whom 771 are on ADHD treatment. That figure follows a rise in demand that accelerated after the pandemic.

CAMHS recently moved into a new centre designed to improve the experience for young people and their families, handling neurodevelopmental and ADHD assessments as well as broader support for under-18s. Earlier this year, the service also brought in an extra locum psychiatrist to carry out additional ADHD assessments. Dr Bowring noted that autism is another significant pressure on the service, and that an extra £200,000 has been allocated this year to contract Cooley Psychology, which is currently delivering 160 additional autism assessments.

On a more encouraging note, Dr Bowring said: “The numbers on our waiting list are the lowest they’ve been for a number of years because of the efforts we’ve put in.” That is welcome progress, but a 70-week wait for a child’s assessment is still, by any reasonable measure, a long time to ask a family to sit tight.

## Adult backlog: demand “hugely exceeds capacity”

The picture for adults is no less challenging. Health managing director Andy Weir told a recent Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel hearing that 1,254 people are waiting for a diagnostic assessment. Although the rate of growth has slowed, the total is still rising. Demand, he said, “hugely exceeded capacity,” and the department does not have enough clinicians to meet it.

Mr Weir outlined the core dilemma bluntly: “Either we’re going to have to outsource, or we’re going to have to move some resource from another part of mental health services to fund this.” He was quick to flag the danger of the latter option. Pointing to the crisis team, whose workload has doubled, he said: “The idea of reducing expenditure in the crisis team, for example, when we know that the work has doubled makes no sense.” The Health Minister has asked officials to draw up options for managing the backlog.

A structural problem compounds the capacity squeeze. Jersey currently has just one psychiatrist specialising in ADHD. Under current prescribing arrangements, that specialist must continue to manage medication reviews for patients already diagnosed and treated, which directly reduces the time available for new assessments. As Mr Weir put it: “Every time we diagnose someone and want to treat them, we’re reducing our diagnostic capacity.” The department has recruited a specialist nurse to take on some of that workload and has set up psychological support groups for people waiting, which have received “good feedback,” though Mr Weir acknowledged that patients ultimately want a diagnosis and treatment.

## Shared-care agreements: still unresolved

One potential release valve, shared-care agreements that would allow GPs to handle repeat prescriptions after a specialist initiates ADHD treatment, has been under discussion since 2023. Such arrangements are standard practice across the UK. However, local GPs have raised concerns about capacity, expertise, and the absence of funding to deliver the service, and conversations remain ongoing with no resolution in sight.

If shared-care agreements were in place, the island’s sole ADHD psychiatrist would be freed from the cycle of repeat prescription management and could focus on clearing the diagnostic backlog. The fact that this relatively straightforward administrative reform has remained in discussion for years will raise eyebrows among patients and families who have been waiting the best part of two years simply to find out whether their child has ADHD.

## The NSFW Perspective

There is something quietly maddening about a system that diagnoses its own problem with crystal clarity, names the solution that the rest of the British Isles has been using for years, and then spends years in “ongoing conversations” about it. Shared-care agreements are not a radical experiment; they are standard NHS practice. Jersey’s GPs have legitimate concerns about funding and capacity, and those concerns deserve a proper answer. But “still talking about it” is not an answer, and it is certainly not comfort to a parent watching their child struggle through a 70-week queue.

The outsourcing question for adult assessments will inevitably come down to money, and that is where the Government of Jersey will need to make a clear-eyed decision rather than another round of options papers. Mr Weir is right that robbing the crisis team to pay for diagnostics would be self-defeating. But doing nothing while the list keeps growing is not a strategy either. As he said himself: “Fundamentally, this is a problem that we need to try and crack.” Quite so. The clock, for over a thousand adults and hundreds of children, is very much ticking.

*Source: [Jersey Evening Post](https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/10/12/70-week-waiting-lists-for-child-adhd-assessment)*