Focus ADHD a national AHSN programme has made the Health Service Journal Awards shortlist for ‘Best Partnership’. This multi award winning programme now sees 68,000 children and young people benefit from an objective assessment for ADHD saving the NHS a potential £23.5m.

The programme is not only breaking boundaries but is also transforming ADHD diagnosis for children and young people. The programme won the HSJ Award in 2019 for Innovation in Mental health and also won earlier this year in March at the HSJ Partnership Awards for ‘Best Mental Health Partnership’.

Originally starting as an EMAHSN demonstrator programme in 2017, the project was rapidly tested out in an East Midlands real-world setting, providing the evidence base for national adoption and spread across England via the AHSN Network.

The programme supports NHS trusts to implement a new pathway for their ADHD services. 63 trusts (approx. 60% of all trusts that provide ADHD assessments) are now delivering the programme across 123 sites. 68,000 children and young people have had a test since January 2017.

The programme uses innovative technology called the QbTest an approved computer-supported objective test which measures attention, motor activity and impulsivity – the core symptoms of ADHD.

The results are instantly analysed and presented in a report which compares a patient’s results against a normative dataset based on age and gender. ADHD practitioners then use information from the QbTest report alongside their clinical assessment to inform their decision on whether the young person has ADHD or not.

The intervention has shown a reduction in time from assessment to diagnosis by 153 days (median) increasing staff capacity by reducing the number of appointments needed for diagnosis by one appointment for the patient. The adoption of the new pathway and QbTest technology is helping to transform outcomes for thousands of families reducing the time to diagnosis so they can get the right support faster.

Now in its 42nd year, the HSJ Awards continue to provide an opportunity to shine a light on the outstanding efforts and achievements that individuals and teams across the NHS deliver on a daily basis.

Winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at the Evolution Centre, London on November 17 2022.