Sheffield children's ADHD assessment waits: the figures

Parents in Sheffield who are trying to get their child assessed for ADHD are facing waits that stretch across years, not months. This article sets out the figures published by Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust and NHS England, explains how Sheffield compares with the wider picture in England, and looks at practical, non-clinical steps families can take while an assessment is pending.

How long are children waiting in Sheffield?

Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the local children's ADHD and autism assessment service, states on its website (updated April 2026) that "our current waiting times for Autism and ADHD assessments range from two and a half to in excess of eight years, with those being referred in most recently waiting the longest."

That means a child referred today may, on the Trust's own figures, wait considerably longer than a child who was referred several years ago, because the waiting list keeps growing.

A Freedom of Information response from the Trust (FOI-12174, dated 28 May 2025) sets out how the number of children waiting for an ADHD assessment in Sheffield has changed:

• End of 2022/23: 2,524 children waiting
• End of 2023/24: 4,792 children waiting
• End of 2024/25: 6,342 children waiting
• As at 28 April 2025: 6,435 children waiting

Over the same period, the number of child ADHD assessments actually completed by the Trust was:

• 2022/23: 106 completed
• 2023/24: 238 completed
• 2024/25: 231 completed

Put simply, the number of children joining the waiting list each year has consistently and substantially outpaced the number of assessments the service has been able to complete.

How does Sheffield fit into the national picture?

Sheffield is not an isolated case. NHS England's independent ADHD Taskforce, in its Part 1 report (published 20 June 2025 and updated 9 December 2025), found that "waiting times for NHS services are increasing (up to 4+ years for children, up to 8+ years for adults) and demand outstrips the capacity of services" across England. The Taskforce also estimated the wider economic cost of not treating ADHD at around £17 billion.

NHS England Digital's ADHD Management Information series tracks how many people in England may be waiting for an ADHD assessment of any age. Its May 2025 publication reported that "in March 2025, up to 549,000 people may be waiting for an ADHD assessment" in England. By its November 2025 publication, that figure had risen further, with "up to 700,123 people who may be waiting for an ADHD assessment" recorded in September 2025.

These NHS England Digital statistics are described by NHS England Digital as management information covering England only, and they are not a precise headcount, but they show the same direction of travel as the Sheffield figures: rising numbers of people waiting, whether children or adults.

It is worth being clear about geography here. These are England figures. Waiting times, referral routes and Right to Choose arrangements differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are not covered by the NHS England data quoted above.

Why does this matter for families?

An ADHD assessment can be the gateway to a formal diagnosis, but a diagnosis is not the only route to support. Children can and often do receive help at school and at home while they remain on a waiting list, and it is worth families understanding what is available in the meantime.

Support through school (England)

In England, the statutory framework for supporting a child's additional needs at school is the SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years. Schools do not need to wait for an ADHD diagnosis before making reasonable adjustments or putting in place additional support through this framework. Parents in Sheffield who are concerned about their child's attention, concentration or behaviour at school can ask to speak to the school's Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) about what support is already available and whether an assessment of educational need might help, separately from the NHS clinical waiting list.

Talking to a GP

A GP cannot diagnose ADHD themselves, but they remain a useful first point of contact. They can confirm a child is on the correct referral pathway, discuss any concerns about a child's wellbeing while waiting, and signpost to other local or national resources.

What families can do while they wait

While there is no way to speed up an individual place on the Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust waiting list, there are some general, non-clinical steps that families sometimes find helpful:

• Keeping a simple record of concerns, behaviours or difficulties at home and school, which can be useful if and when an assessment appointment is eventually offered.
• Maintaining regular contact with the school SENCo so that support in the classroom is not solely dependent on a diagnosis.
• Looking after the wellbeing of the whole family during what can be a long and uncertain wait, including seeking support for parents and carers themselves.
• Considering non-clinical coaching support for parents, focused on routines, communication and managing day-to-day challenges, which does not replace clinical assessment or treatment but can sit alongside it.

What next for Sheffield's ADHD assessment service?

The Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust figures and the national NHS England Taskforce findings both point to a service under sustained pressure, with demand for ADHD assessment continuing to rise faster than capacity to assess. The Taskforce's Part 1 report calls for system-wide action to address rising waiting times and to improve the quality of data used to track them, but does not set a specific date by which Sheffield's waiting times are expected to fall.

Families in Sheffield currently waiting for an ADHD assessment can check the Trust's own website for the latest published waiting time estimate, since this is the most current source of information about their specific service.

ADHD Tribe offers non-clinical coaching for adults and parents navigating ADHD, alongside (not instead of) NHS assessment and treatment. If you are supporting a child through a long wait, coaching can offer a space to think through routines and strategies while you wait for clinical input.

What the completed-assessments figures suggest about capacity

Looking again at the figures from the Trust's FOI response, it is worth sitting with the gap between referrals and completed assessments rather than skimming past it. In 2023/24, the Trust completed 238 assessments while the waiting list grew by well over two thousand children across the two years shown. In 2024/25, completed assessments fell slightly to 231, even as the waiting list continued to grow. This pattern, referrals consistently outstripping completed assessments by a wide margin, is the underlying mechanical reason why waiting times have stretched to the two and a half to eight-plus years reported by the Trust, rather than there being any single, sudden cause. It also explains why the Trust's own guidance states that children referred most recently face the longest waits: each year's backlog is added to, rather than cleared, before the next year's referrals arrive.

A worked, hypothetical example for a Sheffield family

Imagine a hypothetical Sheffield parent, referred to here as Mrs Ahmed, whose seven-year-old is referred for an ADHD assessment this year. Based on the Trust's own published range, and taking the Trust's statement that recent referrals face the longest waits at face value, Mrs Ahmed would be reasonable to plan on the assumption that an assessment appointment could be several years away, rather than treating the lower end of the published range as a likely outcome. This is not a prediction about her actual individual position, only about how to interpret the Trust's own public statement sensibly. Given that timeframe, Mrs Ahmed's most productive immediate steps are likely to be entirely separate from the NHS pathway: speaking to her child's school SENCo about classroom support available now under the SEND Code of Practice, and keeping a simple ongoing record of concerns and events that could be useful whenever the NHS assessment appointment eventually arrives.

Building a useful record while you wait

Because a Sheffield NHS ADHD assessment appointment may be years away, families may find it useful to keep an ongoing, dated log covering things like specific incidents at school or home, any strategies tried and how well they worked, letters or emails exchanged with the school, and any relevant medical appointments (for example with a GP or health visitor) along the way. This is not a clinical requirement and will not speed up the waiting list, but a clear, chronological record can make a real difference to how efficiently an eventual assessment appointment can be used, and it can also support any parallel SEND process at school.

Looking after parents and carers during a long wait

A multi-year wait is genuinely difficult to live with, and it is worth acknowledging that directly rather than glossing over it. Parents supporting a child through years of uncertainty, alongside the ordinary demands of school, work and family life, often find the process itself, not just the underlying difficulties their child faces, to be a significant source of stress. Seeking support for yourself, whether through your own GP, a local carers' support service, or non-clinical coaching focused on managing routines and expectations during a long wait, is a reasonable and sensible thing to do, and is not a sign that anything is being managed badly.

Checking for updates responsibly

Because waiting time figures change over time, and because the Trust updates its website periodically (the page cited in this article was last updated in April 2026), families should treat any specific figure, including those quoted in this article, as a snapshot rather than a permanently fixed number. Checking the Trust's own website periodically, and being cautious about older figures circulating on social media or in older news coverage, is a sensible way to stay reasonably up to date without relying on secondhand or outdated summaries.

References

• Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust: Child Development and Neurodisability
• Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust: ADHD service
• Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust FOI-12174 response, 28 May 2025
• NHS England, Report of the Independent ADHD Taskforce, Part 1
• NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information, May 2025
• NHS England Digital, ADHD Management Information, November 2025