The eight-year ADHD backlog at NHS clinics should cause HE to stop, think and edit

Based on Freedom of Information requests submitted by the BBC, about half of NHS trusts have waits on that scale – at least 196,000 adults are waiting to be seen across the UK.

In Tyne and Wear, for example, the waiting list is just over 11,000 people. 643 were seen last year.

It’s a problem because there are a lot of universities that either say – or heavily imply – that students need a formal, external diagnosis before they can access support or get adjustments to their teaching, support and assessment.

In order to access support at university, you will need to provide third party evidence of your disability. This needs to show that your condition sits within the Equality Act (2010) definition of disability.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission notes the High Court’s finding that:

…where the evidence of a disability is apparent from the student themselves, for example through their behaviour or language, the education provider has knowledge of the student’s disability. The education provider can therefore be found to have discriminated against the student on the grounds of their disability.

If students are unable to get a timely diagnosis on the NHS, or unable to afford one by going privately, that suggests that universities that rely on external diagnosis before their process triggers are behaving unlawfully.

I’m told that in many cases, universities will accept other forms of evidence, including from students – but often that is a secret when it comes to what is said or implied on webpages.

What evidence is required? ADHD: A diagnostic report from an Educational Psychologist or specialist consultant.

Some universities’ webpages directly link – or heavily imply a link to – the process for getting Disabled Students Allowance. But DSA can’t make its mind up on evidence either, and international students (with no recourse to public funds) will assume it means they can get no help.

Some universities tell students that “long-term” in the Equality Act means that the effect of the impairment has lasted for at least twelve months – omitting to mention that it also means “or is likely to last” twelve months.

Once a student and a university agrees that the student should be entitled to reasonable adjustments, one of the most commonly applied adjustments is to give students with ADHD and various other disabilities extra time.

I continue to find it baffling that at the level of the individual assessment, extra time is considered appropriate – but that at the strategic level, disabled undergraduates are expected to complete 360 ECTS credits’ worth of degree at the same pace as everyone else.

Given that the duty to adjust is supposed to be anticipatory, the lack of flexibility in the student maintenance system is astonishing. I’ve explained what it ought to look like on the site previously here and here.

Back at the ranch, Advance HE’s Education for Mental Health Toolkit is a great place to start on understanding the impacts and adjustments that ought to be made – many of which could be made for everyone, eliminating the disadvantage in the process.

And on the numbers that the BBC is suggesting, doing so almost certainly shifts from “nice to have” to “legal requirement”.