Multidisciplinary Consensus for the Future Development of ADHD Services in the UK; Working Together to Improve Patients Care

Abstract

Aim/Objectives: To define a set of standards and validate them as a road map for future development of ADHD services in the UK.

Methods: A multidisciplinary group of clinicians involved in the treatment of patients with ADHD met to define a set of appropriate consensus statements that would define the ideal structure and direction of improving service development in the UK. Forty statements were agreed, covering 10 topics, ranging from commissioning of ADHD services to optimisation of the care pathway. The statements were collated into a questionnaire and passed to other professionals at multidisciplinary meetings around the UK. The questionnaire data was analysed and scores produced for levels of agreement with each statement. Respondents were grouped into child & adolescent psychiatrists, paediatricians, nurses, trainees and other staff.

Results: 122 respondents scored each statement on a questionnaire and levels of agreement were summated and analysed. Of 40 statements, only 4 scored less than 90% agreement (Table 1A), with all statements achieving greater than 74.9% agreement. All other 36 statements achieved greater than 90% agreement while six out these statements achieved greater than 99.1% agreement(Table 1B)

Table 1 The Statements that scored less than 90% were

Table Statements with the highest levels of agreement were

Conclusions: All 40 statements therefore have broad support across the ADHD clinical and professional community and reflect strong agreement about what constitutes best practice in the management of ADHD and the direction for future development of services.