Adult ADHD prescribing in England rose 24.3% in a year: what it means

New official statistics show a marked year-on-year increase in the number of adults in England prescribed medication for ADHD. It is tempting to reach for words like "soaring", but the actual figures are precise, and it is worth reading them precisely rather than reaching for drama. This article sets out exactly what the data shows, what plausibly sits behind it, and what it means if you are currently waiting for an ADHD assessment or newly diagnosed.

The headline figures, in full

According to NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) official statistics on medicines used in mental health in England, covering 2015/16 to 2024/25 and published on 24 July 2025 (updated 15 January 2026), the number of adults prescribed CNS stimulants and other drugs used for ADHD rose by 24.3% between 2023/24 and 2024/25, reaching 190,000 identified patients.

The same data shows a smaller rise among children prescribed medicines in the same category: 9.48% over the same year, reaching 135,000 identified patients.

Two things are worth being precise about, because it is easy for reporting on this kind of data to slip into looser claims:

• This is a single-year, England-only figure. NHSBSA collects and publishes English prescribing data; it does not cover Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, which have separate health systems and separate data.
• The 24.3% figure describes the change from 2023/24 to 2024/25 only. It should not be read as an average annual growth rate over a longer period, or extrapolated into a multi-year trend, because that is not what has been verified here.

Why adult prescribing might be rising

The NHSBSA data does not, on its own, explain why numbers have moved. But other verified sources give useful context for interpreting the scale of unmet need behind these figures.

NHS England Digital's MI ADHD data collection, published in May 2026, estimates that around 2,492,000 people in England have ADHD, including those who are undiagnosed. That is a large gap between the population thought to have ADHD and the number currently receiving a diagnosis or treatment.

A matched cohort study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry on 23 January 2025 puts a finer point on this: around 0.32% of adults in the study's cohort had a recorded ADHD diagnosis, which the authors describe as roughly 1 in 9 of all adults estimated to have ADHD. In other words, on this evidence, the substantial majority of adults with ADHD in the UK remain undiagnosed.

Read alongside each other, these figures suggest that a rising prescribing count in England may reflect more adults coming forward for assessment and receiving a diagnosis, against a backdrop of a very large population who have not yet been diagnosed at all, rather than existing patients simply being prescribed more medication than before. We want to be careful here: the NHSBSA data does not itself state a cause, so this is offered as plausible context drawn from separate, verified sources, not as a proven explanation.

The medicine supply picture

Rising demand for ADHD medicines has coincided with periods of supply difficulty. A national shortage of some ADHD medicines was formally notified in September 2023, affecting the availability of certain stimulant medications for a time.

GOV.UK maintains live guidance on medicine supply management, which sets out how the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS bodies respond when a medicine faces supply disruption, including advice for clinicians on managing patients during a shortage. This guidance is a general resource covering multiple medicines, not an ADHD-specific bulletin, but it is the appropriate place to check for current supply notices.

If you are affected by a medication supply issue, your GP, pharmacist or specialist prescriber is the right person to advise on managing this, including whether any temporary adjustment or alternative approach applies to you. This article cannot and does not give that advice.

What this means if you are waiting for an assessment

If you are on a waiting list for an ADHD assessment in England, rising national prescribing numbers do not tell you anything specific about your own waiting time, which will depend on your local NHS area, whether you are using an NHS pathway or a Right to Choose provider, and local service capacity. NHS England's Right to Choose policy allows patients in England to request referral to a different, qualified provider for a first assessment in certain circumstances, but availability and criteria vary and this is a matter to discuss with your GP.

It is also worth remembering that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run separate NHS systems, with different waiting list data and guidance bodies. National English figures should not be read as describing the whole UK.

What hasn't changed

Despite the rise in prescribing numbers, NICE guideline NG87 continues to recommend lisdexamfetamine or methylphenidate as first-line pharmacological treatment for adults with ADHD in England and Wales. This guidance has not been altered by the prescribing data discussed here, and prescribers continue to work from it when discussing options with patients.

The bigger picture

Taken together, the verified data paints a picture of a system responding to rising recognition of adult ADHD, against a backdrop where most adults with ADHD are still thought to be undiagnosed, and where medicine supply has been under periodic strain. None of the individual figures here supports a claim of runaway, uncontrolled growth over many years; they support a specific, sourced statement about one recent year in England.

If you are newly diagnosed, waiting for assessment, or navigating a medicine supply issue, the practical, day-to-day side of living with ADHD, routines, organisation, managing appointments and building sustainable habits, is something non-clinical coaching can genuinely help with. ADHD Tribe offers coaching of that kind. We do not diagnose or prescribe, and any question about your medication or your place on an assessment pathway should go to your GP or specialist.

What to ask if you are newly diagnosed

If you have recently been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and prescribed medication for the first time, it is reasonable to ask your prescriber practical questions such as how your medication will be reviewed over time, what to do if you experience side effects, and how to get a repeat prescription if your usual pharmacy cannot fulfil it. Keeping a simple written note of your prescribing schedule, including the name and dose of your medication, can make things easier if you ever need to explain your situation to a different pharmacist, a locum GP or a new specialist.

Understanding your local waiting list, realistically

Because NHSBSA prescribing data is published nationally, it can be tempting to treat a single England-wide percentage as if it says something concrete about your own local waiting time. It does not. Local ADHD assessment services differ considerably in capacity, referral criteria and current backlog, and the only way to get a realistic sense of your own likely wait is to ask your GP practice or the service you have been referred to directly.

A note on Right to Choose

NHS England's Right to Choose policy allows some patients in England to ask for a referral to a different, qualified provider for their first ADHD assessment, which can sometimes offer a shorter wait than a local NHS pathway, depending on where you live and which providers are available. Criteria and provider lists change over time, so the right approach is to raise this directly with your GP.

References

• NHSBSA: Medicines used in mental health, England, 2015/16 to 2024/25
• NICE NG87: ADHD diagnosis and management, recommendations
• GOV.UK: Medicine supply management
• British Journal of Psychiatry: Life expectancy and years of life lost for adults with diagnosed ADHD in the UK
• NHS England Digital: MI ADHD, May 2026

Reading prescribing statistics responsibly

Official statistics like the NHSBSA figures used here are collected from actual prescription data dispensed in the community in England, which makes them a robust source for tracking real prescribing activity, rather than survey estimates or self-reported figures. That robustness is exactly why it matters to quote them precisely: a single, verified year-on-year percentage carries real weight, and inflating it into a vaguer multi-year "trend" claim not actually present in the data would undermine that reliability.

It is also worth noting what this kind of data cannot tell us. NHSBSA prescribing statistics count identified patients dispensed a relevant medicine category; they do not, on their own, distinguish between new diagnoses, existing patients whose treatment has changed, or people moving between NHS and private prescribing routes where these are later dispensed via NHS pharmacies. Any explanation of what is driving the year-on-year change is therefore necessarily an interpretation drawn from separate context, not something the prescribing count states directly.

The private and Right to Choose pathway

Part of the broader picture in England is the growth of the Right to Choose pathway, through which patients can ask their GP to refer them to a different, qualified provider, including some private or online providers, for an NHS-funded assessment. This sits alongside traditional NHS community mental health and specialist ADHD service routes. The prescribing rise discussed in this article does not distinguish between medicines initiated via each pathway, but a rising number of adults obtaining a diagnosis through any route would be expected to show up, eventually, in prescribing figures of this kind if medication forms part of their agreed treatment plan.

What to do if you're currently affected by a shortage

If a specific ADHD medicine you take becomes temporarily unavailable at your usual pharmacy, this can be stressful and disruptive, particularly given how routine and dose timing matter for many people with ADHD. The practical, sensible steps are the same ones your pharmacist or prescriber would normally suggest: contact your prescribing GP or specialist promptly, ask your pharmacy whether the shortage is local or national, and avoid making any change to your dose or regimen without professional guidance. GOV.UK's medicine supply management guidance is a public resource clinicians use to understand the national picture, but it is not written for patients to self-manage a shortage without professional input, and we would not suggest using it that way.

Putting the numbers in perspective

None of this is to say the rise in prescribing numbers is unimportant, a 24.3% single-year increase across a national dataset is a substantial movement and reflects real change in how many adults are being treated for ADHD in England. But "substantial" and "precisely measured" are different qualities from "soaring" or "spiralling", language that implies a loss of control this data simply does not demonstrate. Given that the same body of evidence suggests most adults with ADHD remain undiagnosed, a rising prescribing count looks, on the balance of the verified evidence, more like a system gradually catching up with existing need than an anomaly requiring alarm.