Benefit claims for teenagers diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism have more than tripled since the pandemic, with the sharpest rise seen in the richest areas, as researchers warn of the “harmful pathologisation” of the population. The Telegraph has the story.
More than one in 40 teenagers in the most affluent areas received Personal Independence Payments (Pip) last year for ADHD or autism, a study from the Nuffield Trust has found.
The findings have come to light before a Government review into ADHD, autism and mental health services as concerns grow over their diagnosis rates.
Researchers said higher rates of new ADHD diagnoses in wealthier areas could partly reflect affluent families making greater use of private routes to diagnosis.
They warned that soaring demand for diagnosis and treatment risked “crowding out” the most severe cases and the “unnecessary and possibly harmful pathologisation of a sizeable proportion of the population”.
The Nuffield Trust report shows a quarter of 16 to 24 year-olds screened positive for ADHD symptoms in 2023-24, up from around 14% in 2007. Researchers stressed that screening positive for symptoms does not amount to a clinical diagnosis.
Self-reported autism among 16 to 24 year-olds has also risen, from around 5% in 2022 to 9% in 2025.
Seven in 10 GPs believe adult ADHD is overdiagnosed, while more than eight in 10 patients referred for assessments ultimately had received a diagnosis, doctors estimated.
However, Professor Peter Fonagy, who is leading the [Government] review, has insisted the wider rise in mental health problems among young people is real.
He said his review would conclude that problems had increased since the 1990s, with one in four 16 to 24 year-olds struggling with mental health problems.
Prof Fonagy rejected suggestions that a “snowflake generation” was behind the rise, saying it was now “harder to be young”.
He said economic and employment uncertainty, combined with the pressures of social media, had created a “very toxic” environment for young people.
Right, so according to Prof Fonagy, ADHD is ‘social media disease’. Maybe they should put down their phones then rather than draining the public purse.
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JohnK
14 minutes ago
Perhaps it is a statistical side effect. Comfortably off = professional assessment, and no assessment = no diagnosis?
disgruntled246
2 hours ago
Because they know how to play the system.
Having been a parent, and worked in a school as well, I see so many middle class parents who can’t or won’t admit that their child is a little bar steward. So much easier to say oh yah he’s got ADHD than address the fact that the child needs boundaries and to know what is acceptable behaviour, and they are not there to be their child’s friend. Incidentally it is also, as is the pleading of ‘mental health’ for everything (had a bad day at the office? Don’t go home and kick the cat, say ‘my anxiety is really bad right now’), unfair to people who really do have these conditions and engenders scepticism of those actually worthy of sympathy.
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Perhaps it is a statistical side effect. Comfortably off = professional assessment, and no assessment = no diagnosis?
Because they know how to play the system.
Having been a parent, and worked in a school as well, I see so many middle class parents who can’t or won’t admit that their child is a little bar steward. So much easier to say oh yah he’s got ADHD than address the fact that the child needs boundaries and to know what is acceptable behaviour, and they are not there to be their child’s friend. Incidentally it is also, as is the pleading of ‘mental health’ for everything (had a bad day at the office? Don’t go home and kick the cat, say ‘my anxiety is really bad right now’), unfair to people who really do have these conditions and engenders scepticism of those actually worthy of sympathy.
These days it’s hard to tell which is the child and which the parent.
Yes, children (and adults!) need boundaries. The boundaries need to be enforced with effective sanctions – rather like a nation’s borders.