We Need to Talk about the ADHD Crisis
A coroner has said that there is “significant risk of future deaths” unless delays within ADHD services are fixed, following 34-year-old Bethany Hewitt dying by suicide whilst on the waitlist for an ADHD assessment. She died on 22 February 2026 and had been referred for an ADHD assessment 3 years earlier, in February 2023, where she reported that she was struggling with “almost everything”. When she expressed suicidal ideation to a GP in February 2026, she reported that the reasons for this was the wait for an ADHD assessment and a worsening in her perceived ADHD symptoms. By this point, she had already waited three years. Over the last two years the service she had been referred to had experienced a 600% increase in referrals, in line with ADHD services nationally. The fact that this coroner has stated that there is a “significant risk of future deaths” unless concerns around ADHD waitlists are addressed should be a huge national concern.
Bethany’s death should not be seen as an isolated tragedy. It raises much bigger questions about what happens to people with suspected ADHD when they are left waiting years for an assessment, often without meaningful support in the meantime.
Across the country, ADHD services are struggling to keep up with demand. Referrals have risen dramatically in recent years, with some waitlists of up to seven years and some NHS Trusts such as South London and Maudsley (SLaM), Cheshire and Wirral, and Berkshire Healthcare closing to new referrals. The capacity of specialist services has not increased at the same rate as the demand. For some people, this means waiting years for an assessment. For others, this means being unable to access an assessment at all.
The consequences of this are dangerous. ADHD can affect almost every area of a person’s life, including employment, education, relationships, finances, organisation and mental health. When difficulties are severe and persistent, and someone is unable to access appropriate support, the impact can be life-threatening. There is a well-established association between ADHD and suicide, with ADHD being shown to increase the risk of suicide and self-harm (University of Glasgow, 2022), mental health problems (Meisinger & Freuer, 2023) and substance misuse (Rehabs UK, 2024).
Bethany had waited three years already. In some areas, she would be waiting for up to seven years. In other areas, she would be unable to access a referral unless she went through the Right to Choose process (where patients are able to request healthcare is delivered by an alternative healthcare provider), and this process is having a significant financial impact on some ICBs (integrated care boards, which fund the NHS). Three years is an extraordinary length of time to ask someone to wait when they are struggling with “almost everything”.
If ADHD referrals are increasing by hundreds of percent in some services, but assessment and treatment capacity is not increasing alongside them, then the system is effectively creating a growing population of people who are identified as needing help but are unable to access it. The longer those waits become, the greater the possibility that people will reach crisis point before they ever receive the assessment they were referred for.
It is important to be clear about what this does — and does not — mean. We cannot say that a three-year wait caused Bethany’s death, or that receiving an ADHD diagnosis would necessarily have prevented it. Suicide is complex and rarely has a single cause. But we can ask whether a healthcare system should allow someone who is experiencing significant difficulties to remain without specialist assessment or support for three years, and whether the risks created by such delays are being adequately recognised.
The coroner’s conclusion should make that question impossible to ignore.
A finding of a “significant risk of future deaths” is not simply a criticism of what happened in one individual case. It is a warning about the possibility of the same failures contributing to further deaths in the future.
That warning requires an urgent national response.
ADHD services cannot be treated as an optional extra or as something that can simply absorb ever-growing demand without substantial investment. If people are waiting years for assessment, there needs to be a serious conversation about what support is available to them while they wait, how suicide risk is identified and managed, and whether current pathways are safe for people whose difficulties are deteriorating.
For many people, an ADHD assessment is not simply about obtaining a diagnosis. It can be the gateway to understanding why they have struggled for years, accessing medication where appropriate, receiving reasonable adjustments, being referred for additional support, and finally having their difficulties recognised within the healthcare system. Delaying that gateway for years can therefore mean delaying multiple forms of support at once.
Bethany’s story is a devastating reminder of what can be at stake when those delays become normalised.
The national conversation about ADHD has often focused on rising referral numbers, concerns about overdiagnosis, and the pressure this places on services. But there is no evidence that ADHD is being overdiagnosed (British Journal of Psychiatry, 2026). And behind every referral and statistic is a person desperate for help.
If a coroner is now warning of a “significant risk of future deaths” unless delays in ADHD services are addressed, the question is no longer simply whether waiting lists are inconvenient. It is whether they are safe.
And the question is…what is being done about it?
I am now a certified ADHD and AuDHD Coach through ADHD Works. If you are looking for support whilst waiting for an assessment or following a diagnosis and think coaching might be helpful for you, take a look at my website here and get in touch.
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