‘Turns out it’s all a con, then,” someone said to me. This was attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) they were talking about, in reference to Monday evening’s BBC Panorama, which showed what looked like the decidedly doubtful practices of some reassuringly expensive private providers of psychiatry. So brilliant were some of the clinicians at the places featured that with the benefit of but a short questionnaire and a brief online chat, we were told they were able to diagnose ADHD and prescribe potent medication. Great! What service! And what a marvellous business plan: dosh for diagnoses, money for meds.
Panorama could hardly have made it clearer that while a handful of private clinics may be guilty of misdiagnosing ADHD, that doesn’t mean that ADHD itself isn’t a serious, debilitating condition. But if you’ve been a sceptic all along, or weren’t watching carefully enough, or you didn’t watch at all and merely half-heard or half-read something about the BBC programme, then you might well be the person who says to me: “Turns out it’s all a con, then.”
