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There are almost 1,000 adults across the island waiting to be assessed for ADHD, the Mental Health Director has revealed.
Andy Weir told the Health Scrutiny Panel that number of adults awaiting assessment for the neuro-developmental condition has grown to 817 – with an additional 140 young people awaiting transition from children's services into adult care.
This brings the ADHD assessment waiting list total to 957 islanders.
To address this escalating backlog, the Government recently appointed a new senior practitioner to work two days per week with a "specific focus" on reviewing the lengthy queue.
The new staff member will look at different ways of prioritising or categorising the people on the waiting list based on their needs and circumstances.
Pictured: In March, Mental Health Director Andy Weir said closing the ADHD assessment waitlist was being considered due to its excessive length – but no decision has been reached yet.
The new triage system could help target the most pressing needs first due to limited clinical resources.
The new nurse will also provide training to other healthcare professionals to increase the overall number of staff who are qualified and able to conduct ADHD diagnostic assessments.
But Mr Weir acknowledged the "core issue" remains a lack of sufficient capacity, with only one consultant psychiatrist and one junior doctor currently able to diagnose and prescribe ADHD medication to hundreds of patients.
"The level of demand far exceeds the amount of capacity that we have," he said.
"The list will just continue to grow currently, unless we do something else."
Pictured: A nurse has been appointed to review the waiting list to identify potential triage approaches and provide training to professionals to increase overall diagnostic capacity.
Despite this new hire, Mr Weir recently confirmed that the possibility of closing the ADHD assessment waitlist is still under review.
He said: “We have not made a decision to close the waiting list; instead, we will continue to review this."
The Mental Health Director told the scrutiny panel that the key bottleneck exists in the prescribing process itself.
Currently, only specialist psychiatrists are allowed to prescribe ADHD medications on the island.
"Therefore the psychiatrist is spending more than half of their time just issuing the repeat prescriptions over and over and over again," he explained.
To alleviate this strain, efforts are underway with primary care providers to establish a shared care policy – as is the case in other jurisdictions.
This would enable GPs to take over routine prescribing after treatment is initiated by a specialist psychiatrist.
Pictured: The amount of time islanders are waiting for an ADHD assessment continues to increase each month.
The Health Department recently confirmed that "the prescribing process remains under active review” – but the introduction of shared prescribing is likely to require Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and later Social Security Minister approval to add certain medications to the 'whitelist' on the Health Insurance Fund.
It would also require the development of shared care guidelines, as well as GP agreement and funding.
While working towards such a solution with primary care, Mr Weir said other support options are being explored to support people while they wait for assessment and medication.
This could include interventions focused on sleep management, anxiety reduction and other needs to "help manage some of the presentations that people struggle with" while awaiting assessment.
The Government is also commencing work on a neurodiversity strategy — led by Mr Weir and Autism Jersey chair Deputy Helen Miles — to examine wider support beyond medication and psychiatry.
This multi-agency initiative will examine expanding support beyond medication and psychiatry as part of a wider mental health strategy due for completion by the end of the year.
"We've started to talk about what type of offer could we make that might support other people whilst they're waiting," added Mr Weir.
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