Improving ADHD services in Scotland
In 2006, we embarked on a programme of work to look at services
for children and young people with ADHD.
We initially set out to investigate:
- how ADHD services in Scotland are configured
and delivered
- how many children and young people have a
diagnosis of ADHD, and
- whether their care and treatment is delivered
in line with the evidence-based national SIGN Guideline 52.
During the following 6 years, children and
young people with ADHD, parents/carers, and service providers from
across Scotland have helped us to understand:
- how many children and young people in
Scotland are diagnosed with ADHD
- what services are in place for them
- how those services are organised and
delivered
- where service development is required,
and
- perhaps, most importantly, what it is like to use services, and
what might improve the experience for children and young.
We have achieved this in three stages and
have just completed stage 3.
Stage 3 – Follow-up review
(2011–2012): the implementation review exercise report
included a number of recommendations. We wanted to determine to
what extent our recommendations have been implemented, and if they
have improved services in Scotland for children and young people
with ADHD. We were also keen to learn about local innovations and
any challenges to service delivery and development.
Stage 2 – Implementation review
exercise (2007–2008): we developed a data collection tool,
based on the recommendations in SIGN Guideline 52. Each NHS board
area received a local report of the implementation review findings,
and we also published an overview report.
This stage also included work with the
ADHD-project user and parent/carer subgroup (ADHD-PUPS). It was
important to find out what service users thought about their
treatment and involvement with services. To supplement the
information from the questionnaires, we held a one-day conference
in November 2007. In 2008, we published the full report of this
work.
Stage 1 – Service profiling
2006–2007: we developed a service profiling questionnaire
which asked for information about how services for children and
young people with ADHD are configured and delivered. Following the
analysis of the returned information, small teams of stakeholders
met with representatives from each NHS board area. The report of
this work was published in March 2007.
In this section you will find the detailed
reports of our findings on all three stages and associated
resources.
