There’s been a massive rise in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) awareness and diagnosis recently. As part of this, I’m seeing more and more people feeling comfortable seeking help and sharing their experiences, which is great to see normalised. Some even make it a key aspect of their online brand, offering paid services to help others.
Summary and Disclaimer
The rise in ADHD awareness is empowering more people to seek help, but what happens when the system fails them?
A friend of mine allowed me to share their personal journey of navigating NHS wait times, inaccessible diagnoses, and workplace resistance to provide software. Their struggles with ADHD led to losing their apprenticeship, their degree, and three years of hard work, all for requesting text-to-read software. On-going challenges are faced by many in education and the workplace.
I have their consent to share this story in this manner. Please note, that this is second-hand information, while verification efforts have been made some detail might not be entirely accurate.
Their story
A Gen-Z friend, in their mid-20s, was certain they had ADHD. However, getting an NHS healthcare diagnosis proved impossible due to the long waiting lists.
Seemingly, if you go private, you can get a diagnosis, but this might not be entirely accurate. Additionally, private diagnoses are often not “accepted” by the NHS. This is seemingly for good reason, some of these private clinics were found not to behave ethically. In practice, once someone has a “private diagnosis” you have to pay for private prescriptions which are not cheap or sustainable.
This friend was left trying to source ADHD medication from the underground market to see if it helped. Fast forward about 5 years, and they managed to get into the NHS system, receive a diagnosis, and obtain a prescription.
However, they soon discovered that medications are harder to access due to shortages. Pharmacies are closing at an alarming rate. Also, because of Brexit, it’s harder for the UK to get medications from other EU countries when supplies run short, which has seemingly made the situation worse. They were left rationing medication focusing on key events like exams.
In parallel to this, as part of their University course, they study then go into industry. They were an apprentice through a government scheme with an employer. When they finally got the ADHD diagnosis, they reached out to their company about “reasonable adjustments”.
I didn’t really understand what being an apprentice meant in 2023, so I did a bit of research. From what I could gather, the government essentially subsidises the company to employ apprentices. This means their labour is pretty much free, as they’re typically paid minimum wage.
They mentioned that their employer wasn’t very responsive to their needs, and they had to chase them repeatedly. This filled me with dread. I couldn’t shake a sinking feeling about them chasing their company.
I asked about their needs to better understand the situation. I didn’t feel good about what I said next, but I tried to explain the differences between how things should work and how they do work.
They rightly pointed out that the government assigns budgets for these adjustments, meaning the company could essentially employ them for free and implement the necessary adjustments also for free (or low-cost).
They weren’t asking for much, some simple software, meeting agendas and meeting notes.
However I was acutely aware in reality this involves several people doing something. IT have to sort out the software and budget, meeting people have to change behaviour and add notes.
They explained they requested text-to-speech software that they had access to during education and felt too much pressure to learn something new, which is fair.
However, I tried to understand what laptop they were using and suggested a few free alternatives that could provide a similar result. They were using Windows so I suggested similar solutions like NVDA and Windows Narrator. I even offered to show them how to use these. My thinking if they could not involve the company it would be better, they were on minimum wage. They weren’t “high up” with the power to get a different reaction.
I started to wondered if the UK education system should be suggesting free software instead of supplying students with paid-software like ClaroRead. Something paid-for creates a barrier.
I explained that they were asking someone to do extra work, it would depend on the person but most likely they wouldn’t want to fill out government forms. Even if it cost the company nothing. The person they contacted might not care. I said given the choice of filling out forms they might just get rid of them.
They seemed to process this information but action was already taken, a few weeks later, they received notice that they were being made redundant.
I had a small hope it might be OK, but it wasn’t the case.
Losing 3 years
To make matters worse, the apprenticeship was linked to their University course. Without completing it, they couldn’t graduate in the same way.
They reached out to their University for help, but they didn’t receive any. Instead, they were passed around from one department to another. It was their responsibility to find a new apprenticeship scheme with an employer and transfer it. For some reason, the scheme was complicated, and transferring was not easy, there was also a deadline.
If they couldn’t transfer their points, they risked losing all their course credits.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what happened. The 3 years they spent at University alongside the apprenticeship was “wasted”.
They were left considering their next steps. In the end, they had to start their education all over again, enrolling in a new course doing something entirely different. I still don’t really have any words or ideas to help them.
They had to accept the loss of those 3 years alongside the huge financial cost, their rights being violated and move forward with something new.