This is fucking embarrassing ‘journalism’ from the BBC.
Guy goes to an NHS doctor, flat-out states the nature of his investigation and gets behind the scenes information on assessments.
Then he hits up three private clinics actively looking for an ADHD diagnosis, has his friends fill out witness forms, and is shocked when he receives a diagnosis.
An utter disgrace.
Turns out, if you go and lie about your symptoms, they’ll diagnose you.
Consider me fucking shocked.
thank you, random white man, for this insight on the condition known to be underdiagnosed in women and people of color
I’m not sure what the point of this was. Like, the article doesn’t really even touch on what his methodology was—it doesn’t actually state whether he was filling out the forms honestly, and knowing how an evaluation works and going into the evaluation with the goal of “demonstrating” something about an evaluation infuses inherent bias into everything
this is just yet another thing that serves to create paranoia about people getting prescribed stimulant meds. Something that, in the USA, is difficult to the point that it blocks people from obtaining the care that they need all the time, and i know in many other countries it’s even harder
Like, why did he feel the need to do this to begin with. I’m sure that if he went to several different doctors trying to get a diagnosis of chronic constipation, he would get one, because listening to a patient when they bring a concern up to you is Your Job as a doctor
@headspace-hotel uk person checking in! when you go public for an adhd assessment, waiting lists are YEARS long with often no indication of when you’ll finally be seen. thus, many people – who are desperate for care – will pay money (which you don’t have to do for public healthcare) to go private.
so basically it’s stigmatising people who were so desperate that they were willing to find £1,000 to get help.
So this asshole was actively taking precious opportunities and resources away from people who need them?
Is your conclusion “he tried to prove that private clinics are bad, something something, less people will be able to go to private clinics for these resources as a result” or “he took 3 diagnoses in private clinics which could have been 3 other people’s diagnoses and resources”?
He seems to have bypassed the atrociously long waiting list for the NHS appointment - which he biased anyway by disclosing his investigation to the NHS doctor.
He then fabricated symptoms to three private clinics which require two other people to validate his symptoms - all in a bid to frame them as predatory.
This could have been an investigation into underfunding of the NHS and absurd waiting lines forcing people to use private clinics. Instead the story became ‘ADHD is a fun trend and you can just pay to get a diagnosis’.
It’s malicious journalism that casts doubt in the public’s mind. Some people are now not going to believe other people’s ADHD diagnosis on the back of it.
we also want to challenge his assumption that private clinics apparently taking less time to diagnose obvious adhd is a reflection on their lack of diligence - it’s much more a reflection on how much more gatekeepy the nhs is encouraged to be, especially when it’s about “invisible” or mental health or neurodivergent conditions (we had 11 hours of meetings before getting diagnosed autistic by the nhs at 55 - a diagnosis six different other autistic people had spotted right away)
you see this with gender care too, nhs gender care (assuming you ever make it to the top of a six year waiting list) is like “yes come and see us for a year before we’ll consider hrt for you - but not if you’re fat or have mental health conditions because fuck you” while private clinics are like “yes we confirm that you are trans, why on earth would we make you wait?”
Yeah, I wonder if the NHS considers the entire time from the start of assessment. Their ‘thorough assessment’ is someone else’s frequent misdiagnosis and the doctor even not believing them at face value.
if you ever see or hear me say “okay…now you pissed me off” i hope you know im specifically referring to a deviantart edit my friends and i found years ago of woody from toy story but as vampire
this. this is the masterpiece i think about every day of my life
trying to figure out the funniest crackpot stance on who is the current Roman emperor, and accepting suggestions (tenuous historical justification required)