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Rushed review into overdiagnosis of mental health and neurodivergent conditions begins

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A rushed review, lasting just 3-6 months, to decide whether mental health conditions, autism and ADHD are being overdiagnosed has been launched by the government.  Fears have been raised that the extraordinarily quick turnaround time is needed to allow the review to influence the outcome of the Timms personal independence payment (PIP) review.

The review has been commissioned by Wes Streeting’s Department of Health and Social Care.

Back in March of this year, Streeting had railed against the fact that 1,000 people a day are signing up for PIP and “over the course of a year that’s the size of the city of Manchester”

And in the same month he claimed that there was an overdiagnosis of mental health conditions.

Yet,  the Guardian on 4 December Streeting said he regretted this statement and that the purpose of the review was simply to reveal the truth about the issue.

On the same day, he announced in a written statement his “Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism”.

Streeting says the review will “look to understand the similarities and differences between mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, regarding prevalence, prevention and treatment, the current challenges facing clinical services, and the extent to which diagnosis, medicalisation and treatment improves outcomes for individuals.” 

Details of the review were first leaked to the Health Service Journal back in October, when it was revealed that psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist Peter Fonagy, would lead the review, with the hugely divisive Sir Simon Wessely acting as vice chair.

In the same month, we pointed out that the NHS had published its own “Report of the Independent ADHD Taskforce, Part 1” this year.

The report was compiled by a team of 40 people, including Prof Tamsin Jane Ford, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Head of Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, plus six other professors. It found that the UK has much lower recognition and treatment rates of ADHD compared with other European countries. 

We argued that, in the face of such up-to-date, expert evidence, if Streeting didn’t remove ADHD from the list of conditions being investigated, it  would increase the suspicion that this review is not about establishing the truth, it is about cutting the benefits bill.

The terms of reference of the review still include ADHD, but no doubt coincidentally, they say that the team “will also consult other relevant reviews and taskforces, including reports by the independent ADHD Taskforce, to ensure its conclusions and recommendations are aligned.”

In addition, an extra vice chair, Professor Gillain Baird who is a consultant in children’s neurodisability, has been appointed – perhaps to offset some of the effect of the presence of Professor Wessely.

Amongst the issues the review will examine are:

  • the current extent to which diagnosis, medicalisation and treatment improve outcomes
  • the differences between the levels of need and disorder for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism
  • the role that medicalisation of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism plays, including the associated risks and benefits

The review is required to work extraordinarily quickly.  It is expected to report back in 3-6 months having looked at mental health, autism and ADHD.  Yet the ADHD taskforce referred to above, had a much narrower focus, but it was set up in April 2024, produced its interim report in June 2025 and its final report in November of this year – a total of 18 months.

But the rapid turnaround means that Streeting’s review, which should  report back by June 2026 at the latest, will be available to be studied by the Timms review of PIP, which is not due to report until the Autumn of 2026.

If the Streeting review does find that conditions are being overdiagnosed and that this has a negative effect on people’s life chances, then it would provide a strong argument for tightening the eligibility criteria for PIP in relation to mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions.

The Streeting review says it will “work closely with people with lived experience of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism” and  “consult closely with parents and carers”.

We will keep readers informed of any opportunity to provide evidence to the review, if indeed any such opportunities arise.-

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  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    Catherine
    · 19 days ago
    Fears that this review will likely lead to cuts to PIP confirmed basically 
    I have autism and mental health and affected greatly by it 
    PIP was hard enough to get 
    If they make PIP impossible to claim for us, then they scrap WCA and use PIP to claim UC health, we will then fall through the cracks and be unable to claim for both benefits. I cannot work because stress and other factors often lead to burnout & crisis. If the report finds it’s overdiagnosed (which we know is BS) and they use it to move goalposts and make cuts, many people like me won’t survive :(
    Worst case scenario but still a fear I have. 
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    HL
    · 19 days ago
    Key findings from the NHS Report of the Independent ADHD Taskforce (April 2025) -

    ADHD is common and treatable but costly when unsupported.

    England and the rest of the UK have much lower service recognition and treatment rates of ADHD diagnosis compared with other European countries (e.g. Norway, Denmark, Spain).

    Waiting times for NHS ADHD services have escalated and are unacceptably long.

  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    John
    · 19 days ago
     I think the end goals are:

    Claiming the government's policy decisions are based on expert opinion and evidence by picking the experts and terms of reference to create the desired evidence.

    Reduce the number of people going to their GP with these health conditions as they will fear being treated as wasting their GPs time, having nothing really wrong with them or as lying playing the system. And reduce the number of referrals by GPs to specialists. GPs dismissing people's health problems as minor or exaggerating. So reducing NHS waiting lists. Or referring people to psychologists for talking therapies rather than to psychiatrists.

    Justify reducing eligibility to PIP daily living and therefore to UC health once the WCA is abolished. By downplaying the health conditions.

    Claiming they are stopping people from being thrown on the scrap heap and are helping people trapped on benefits. By removing the perverse financial incentives to be disabled rather than trying to work. And redefining people as saying or believing they cannot do things or cannot work when they really can. They just need encouragement and support to overcome their problems and change their attitude and make the effort. Or that employment has changed so now they can work be that due to technology or from home or due to employers making adjustments. And that these people will in the end thank the government for improving their lives and believing in them rather than just giving them some money and abandoning them.

    Claiming they are saving the welfare system. By spouting the narrative that the number of people claiming to be disabled is spiralling up and the costs are unsustainable. And they cannot all be really disabled and unable to work. So the welfare system has to be saved from them. So it is still there for those who are genuinely too disabled to work.

    As long as the media and politicians continue to paint disability benefits as a lifestyle choice and a unfair, unsustainable burden on hard working taxpayers. This country will continue to go to Hell.

    Long term UC health is restricted to those on PIP daily living, and UC health premium for new claimants is cut and frozen. So PIP becomes the benefit you need to get. So I expect future governments will go after PIP again and again. Reducing eligibility for some conditions or reducing the amount of PIP and removing the passport to UC health for some conditions, or replacing PIP for some conditions with help in kind or one off payments.
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      pollenpath
      · 19 days ago
      @John 'Encouragement' being their sinister codeword for punitive sanctions, of course. 
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      tintack
      · 19 days ago
      @John
      These may well be the aims. If so, it's up to all of us to fight like hell as we did earlier this year, thus making another major rebellion as likely as possible. A good start will be voting for the Greens or other parties to Labour's left in May, as a drubbing in May will cause panic in the PLP and could well lead to Starmer being ousted, in which case all bets are off and whatever plans they currently have could be upended anyway.  

      Above all, they have to be left in no doubt that continuing on this path is going to lead to them being battered at the next general election and huge numbers of Labour MPs losing their seats. There have already been reports that the McSweeney faction, which still wants to go after Reform voters, is now losing ground to others who are much more worried about the threat from the Greens and to some extent the Lib Dems. They should be worried: the polling evidence is now clear that their attempts to win over Reform voters are failing, and instead their core vote is bleeding away to the Greens and other left of centre parties. Hence their collapse in the polls. There have even been a few polls that have the Greens ahead of Labour: even a single such poll would have been completely unthinkable just a few months ago.
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    Kevin
    · 19 days ago
    My psychiatrist told me that I’m the UK on 3% of the population have a diagnosis of Autism or ADHD. He said this is extremely low as most first world countries have between 15 and 17%, he said it’s under diagnosed in the UK and many people are being left to suffer. This will only get worse with this rushed for gone conclusion report. 
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    Jaffa cake
    · 20 days ago
    I have autism and use that for my main condition for dwp health benefits it is an old nhs one too I’m not a teenager either in my 50s now I would say worst happens old diagnosis will be fine but new diagnosis will be looked at and scrutinised more and will have to be a nhs one not an internet one don’t think they will cut autism off altogether 
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    rookie
    · 20 days ago
    It will be fascinating to see what the Timms review comes up with to squirm out of making appropriate proposals if the review into neorodivergency and mental health concludes conditions are under diagnosed, as some experts have suggested. What a shot in the foot that would be.
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      tintack
      · 19 days ago
      @rookie
      It's clear that as far as the government is concerned, the NHS independent review was a bit too independent, so it needs the "expertise" of someone like.......Simon Wessely, despite the immense damage he did by claiming ME is a psychsomatic illness, a claim which is now discredited. Clearly that makes him just the sort of chap the government is looking for.

      It really is crucially important that Labour get an absolute hammering in the May elections and that they suffer at the hands of parties to their left, especially the Greens. If that happens, Starmer will probably be ousted, which means Reeves will have to go as well. McFadden is close to Starmer so he might be out as well. At that point, whatever plans they currently have could be completely upended. A thumping in May would also be a clear warning to them that if they carry on serving up this right wing slop they will suffer electorally. 

      That would also have an effect on Labour MPs: backbenchers tend not to be so intimidated by threats to toe the line from the leadership if they can see that that leadership is going to cost them their seats anyway. When they won the election last year, most of their backbenchers would have assumed that they were pretty much guaranteed to be in parliament for at least a decade. Now their polling has collapsed to such an extent that most of them are staring down the barrel of being single term MPs.  A drubbing in May would really cause panic in the PLP, so anyone who lives in an area where elections are being held in May needs to make use of their vote. Politicians may not care about us, but they sure as hell care about hanging on to their seats. 
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      John
      · 19 days ago
      @rookie As mentioned in the article they already had a recent NHS review of ADHD that reached that conclusion. It is obviously not the expert opinion the government wants so the government is having this new review. And has picked the chair and vice chair and the terms of reference for this new review so they get the expert opinion they want. So the government can claim its policy decisions are based off expert opinion and evidence, rather than the expert opinion and evidence was created to give intellectual cover to their policy decisions. It is all a sham. 
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    Neil
    · 20 days ago
    Sounds to me like they've already made their decision and this is just to cover their backsides and prejudice the public etc against us further. I really hope my pip mandatory reconsideration comes out in my favour, I really do.
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      Annatar
      · 15 days ago
      @Neil Neil who dares wins.
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      Neil
      · 19 days ago
      @sara I absolutely intend to hold my ground on this 
    • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
      sara
      · 20 days ago
      @Neil @Neil Stand firm and appeal if the MR is not in your favour. They rarely are. At appeal you have a much greater chance of success if you can demonstrate where the original decision does not match the points which should have been awarded according to evidence and what you said in your pip interview. You can get a copy of the interview report from DWP.

      DWP recently did the standard thing with an MR I was helping with and awarded the same points as the original decision, with a nonsensical explanation which only made them look ridiculous. Miraculously, they u-turned before the appeal even got as far as tribunal ("We have looked again at our decision"), and they made a higher award. They routinely turn down MRs, without even bothering to review the case, in the hope people will not take it further.

      Get advice, send more evidence if you can and challenge the decision with specific reference to the original points awarded, giving reasons for your selection of alternative descriptors/points. Make them look again.

      The longer you hold out, the more DWP incompetence is exposed. It's only when the case reaches a senior decision maker or tribunal that your case is properly considered.
  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    Dajs
    · 20 days ago
    Timely opinion piece on ADHD by Gabor Mate, in yesterday's Guardian. 

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