When I told my husband I was writing a post for ADHD Awareness Month, he asked, "Do you think you'll manage to finish it before you decide to rearrange the kitchen, start three other jobs and forget where you left your phone?"
And maybe that gives you a little insight into why I'm so passionate about the project we've been working on at Health Innovation East Midlands.
Over the last few years, much attention has rightly been given to the challenges facing ADHD services. Growing demand, increasing waiting lists and stretched services are realities that many clinicians, commissioners and professionals are working incredibly hard to address.
While there are no quick fixes, one thing has become increasingly clear, digital innovation has the potential to play an important role in supporting services, improving experiences and creating efficiencies that enable staff to focus on what matters most, caring for people.
Our Digital for Neurodiversity work didn't start with technology, it started with pathway transformation.
Across the Health Innovation Network, colleagues in Health Innovation North West Coast have been leading the development and testing of a new adult ADHD pathway, designed to create a more sustainable, needs-based approach to care. Health Innovation East Midlands took the lead on exploring how digital innovation could support and complement that work.
That's where our Digital Tools workstream, and ultimately the wider Digital for Neurodiversity portfolio, was born.
We knew there were digital tools being used across ADHD and neurodiversity pathways, but there wasn't a clear picture of what innovations existed, what problems they were trying to solve, what evidence supported them, or how they might fit into local services, so we started exploring.
Over the last 18 months, we've identified and reviewed more than 100 innovations relevant to neurodiversity pathways. Along the way, we've spoken to innovators, clinicians, commissioners, and people with lived experience. We've also worked closely with a number of innovators to support implementation opportunities and better understand how these technologies perform in real-world settings.
What we discovered was an exciting and rapidly evolving landscape.
From digital referral and triage tools, to assessment support, waiting list management, self-management platforms and workflow automation, there are a growing number of innovations with the potential to support both people accessing services and the teams delivering them.
But with so many options available, navigating that landscape can be challenging.
That's why we created the Digital for Neurodiversity Platform https://digital-for-neurodiversity.co.uk/
The platform was designed to help clinicians, commissioners and healthcare professionals explore digital innovations in one place.
Rather than promoting specific products, our aim is to support informed decision making by bringing together information on:
- Available innovations
- Key functionality and features
- Areas of pathway support
- Evidence and reported benefits
- Implementation considerations
Because every service is different, and every system has different priorities.
What works really well in one place may not be the right solution somewhere else. Our goal is simply to make it easier for people to understand what's available and identify solutions that might help address local challenges.
For me, the most important thing about this project is that it has never really been about technology, it's about people.
It's about helping services find ways to reduce unnecessary administrative burden. It's about supporting teams to work more efficiently. It's about improving experiences for people navigating neurodiversity pathways. And ultimately, it's about creating more time for the human interactions that matter most.
As we mark ADHD Awareness Month, I'm proud of what we've built so far, excited about what's next, and grateful to all of the stakeholders and people who have joined and supported us on the way to help shape this journey.