In the foreword to a report by the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt argues that children are being overdiagnosed with mental health and neurodivergent conditions. In England, one in five children has been identified with additional needs, and Hunt says that the rise in Send spending “risks the financial sustainability of local government.”
The idea of this claimed “overdiagnosis” is baffling to me because, as a secondary school teacher, I've seen firsthand how labyrinthine and difficult the process is. Some students never get a diagnosis and so will never get to thrive in the way they should. Often, too, there is a generational impact. Wary parents, with similar needs that they never received support for in school, are sceptical that schools would provide it for their children.
