I wasn\u2019t surprised by the children\u2019s commissioner report out today, calling for urgent action to tackle waiting lists in mental health care for children. <\/p>\n
Ten years ago, I received a call from my son Thomas\u2019s* reception teacher. They asked me to come in and said he was showing some developmental delays, and autistic traits. Within six months Tom, who is now 15, was diagnosed with autism and ADD (attention deficit disorder) and medicated.<\/p>\n
Parental guilt: Is it just mums? Do dads have it too?\u00a0Join parenting author Zoe Blaskey, columnist Claire Cohen and Times Radio presenter Geoff Norcott at 8pm on Tuesday, May 20 for a lively, honest discussion \u2013 the first live, virtual event in our Parent Talks series. Sign up here<\/b><\/a> to join for free<\/b><\/p>\n Fast forward to his younger brother William*, and he has been languishing on a waiting list<\/a> for six years. <\/p>\n Unlike his older brother, William has always excelled academically. But by the age of seven his teachers noticed various issues: he was impulsive, quick to anger and unable to self-regulate \u2014 all classic traits of ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). Unlike Tom, who isn\u2019t hyperactive but struggles with concentration and has a low social battery, William bounced around the classroom manically.<\/p>\n The school referred him to CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) to be assessed for ADHD in November 2021. The school could see how much I was struggling and sent CAMHS an email each week asking where he was on the waiting list. Despite this, it took until October 2024 for William to be diagnosed with ADHD<\/a>. By then he was in secondary school.<\/p>\n The next step was to get him medicated. I had done a huge amount of research after Thomas\u2019s diagnosis, and I knew that medicating William would be his best chance of being able to focus at school and achieve his potential. But after his diagnosis, he seemed to drop out of the system: the clinic who diagnosed him wrote to our GP, but our GP had no record of it and neither did CAMHS. Somebody from CAMHS told me that to get a prescription we needed a referral to a paediatrician at our local hospital. My GP said this was wrong.<\/p>\n Back and forth I went, bounced between departments and doctors, chasing up appointments, only to find we had been pushed even further down an already long list. At the moment we\u2019ve been told it will be 24 months until William can be medicated.<\/p>\n