Manchester ADHD Waiting List: What the NHS’s Own Decisions Mean for You in 2026

A waiting list that keeps growing

If you’re waiting for an NHS ADHD assessment in Greater Manchester, you already know the wait is long. What you may not know is that the local NHS body responsible for funding these assessments has just made it longer, deliberately, as a way of managing a budget that hasn’t kept pace with demand.

According to Greater Manchester’s Integrated Care Partnership , the waiting list for autism and ADHD assessments is on track to pass 30,000 people unless something changes. That’s not a projection from a campaign group or a private clinic. It’s the ICB’s own planning document.

What changed on 1 April 2026

From 1 April 2026, NHS Greater Manchester altered how new, non-urgent ADHD and autism assessments are booked through Right to Choose providers. Appointments are now released more gradually, and people are prioritised by clinical urgency rather than strictly by referral date.

In practice, this means the ICB gives each Right to Choose provider a fixed annual allocation of funded assessments, known as an Indicative Activity Plan. Once a provider has used its allocation for the year, it stops booking new NHS-funded appointments for Greater Manchester patients until fresh funding is confirmed. Clinical Partners, one of the larger Right to Choose providers, has confirmed exactly this: appointments funded by Greater Manchester ICB for the current financial year have run out, and new bookings are on hold pending further instruction from the ICB.

Nobody loses their place on the list, and referrals stay open. But there is currently no way to know when a booking date will actually be offered.

The scale of the problem, in the ICB’s own words

The Greater Manchester ICP has been direct about why this is happening: demand for autism and ADHD assessments across England now exceeds the funding available, and the money allocated to Greater Manchester for 2026/27 has not increased to match it. Integrated Care Boards nationally have been told to manage demand within fixed budgets, which is why waiting lists everywhere are being actively rationed rather than simply growing.

A parallel, deeper look at the numbers strengthens the picture. An investigation using Freedom of Information requests submitted to all 42 English ICBs found that, between 2023/24 and now, ICBs collectively spent at least £512 million commissioning ADHD and autism assessments from private providers, more than doubling year on year. Greater Manchester alone is projected to spend £22.3 million on private assessments in 2025/26 the single highest figure of any ICB in the country, despite actively restricting how many of its own residents can use Right to Choose.

The same investigation found that most ICBs, including many spending millions, could not say how many assessments that money actually bought or how long people waited. Only a handful could report average wait times at all. Where it was measured, in Derby and Derbyshire, the average wait from referral to assessment was over 2,300 days — more than six years.

Why so many people are choosing to go private

There’s a certain irony in the current system: the NHS is already the biggest single purchaser of private ADHD assessments in the country, spending hundreds of millions of pounds a year, while individual patients are told to wait indefinitely for the same kind of appointment. For many people, going private directly isn’t jumping any kind of queue — it’s simply removing the ICB as the middleman.

A private assessment carried out by a GMC-registered Consultant Psychiatrist, following NICE guideline NG87, is generally accepted by GPs as the basis for an NHS shared care agreement for ongoing prescribing. That means a private diagnosis isn’t a dead end; it’s a legitimate route back into NHS-supported, lower-cost ongoing care once you’re diagnosed.

How ADHD Clinics fits into this

At ADHD Clinics, an adult ADHD assessment is £600, and every first appointment is with a Consultant Psychiatrist — there’s no screening call or triage stage to get through first. We operate across Cheshire and Greater Manchester, with a like-for-like price promise against comparable Consultant-led services.

If you’ve been sitting on the Greater Manchester waiting list without a booking date, or you’ve just been told your referral is paused until further NHS funding is confirmed, you don’t have to keep waiting to find out where you stand.

Frequently asked questions

Will my GP accept a private ADHD diagnosis?

Yes, provided the assessment is carried out by a GMC-registered Consultant Psychiatrist and follows NICE guideline NG87. This is the standard our assessments are built around.

Do I lose my place on the NHS waiting list if I get assessed privately?

No. Your NHS referral and place on the list are unaffected by having a private assessment. Many people choose to keep both options open.

Why has Greater Manchester ICB paused new Right to Choose bookings?

The ICB has confirmed this is a funding decision, not a capacity issue on the part of providers. Each provider is given a fixed annual allocation of NHS-funded assessments, and bookings pause once that allocation is used, until new funding is agreed.

Sources

Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership — ADHD and Autism Assessments

Special Needs Jungle — ADHD and Autism Right to Choose referrals paused as at least nine NHS areas tell providers to stop booking assessments

Neurodiversity Directory — NHS Private Spending on ADHD & Autism: ICB Data Map 2026

ADHD UK — NHS Greater Manchester ICB ADHD Assessment Information

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