Staffing ADHD Services

By Kirsty Morris

As I continue to learn more about the ADHD assessment and treatment landscape, one theme comes up again and again in conversations with clinic leads and clinicians:

👉 It’s not just demand that’s growing – it’s the pressure on the people delivering the service.

ADHD clinics rely on a highly skilled, multidisciplinary workforce, and each role plays a critical part in delivering safe, timely, and person-centred care.

The core roles behind an ADHD service are typically multi-disciplinary, including: Consultant psychiatrists to diagnosis, manage complex cases and prescribe,

Psychologists conducting assessments and provide therapeutic input,

Nurse prescribers, ADHD Coaches and of course none-clinical roles.

Individually, these roles are demanding. Together, they form a system that only works when capacity, continuity, and collaboration are in balance.

Where the strain often shows up, from what I’m hearing, recruitment challenges tend to show up in a few familiar ways:

👉Shortages of clinicians with ADHD-specific experience

👉Competition for the same limited talent pool across NHS and private services

👉Bottlenecks when one role (often prescribers or admin support) limits the whole pathway

👉Burnout risk when teams are stretched faster than services can scale

And when staffing gaps persist, the knock-on effects are felt everywhere – waiting times, team morale, patient experience, and long-term sustainability.

A question I’m genuinely curious about is:

Which role is currently hardest to recruit in your ADHD service?

And why do you think that is?

I’m really interested in learning from those working inside ADHD services, as understanding the people challenges feels just as important as understanding the clinical pathways themselves.

If you’re interested in letting me know your thoughts on this, drop me a message here.