The final report will also explore the reasons for the rapidly increasing demand for diagnosis and support, including greater awareness of conditions such as ADHD, some of which is driven by social media.
The interim report found that the number of ADHD diagnoses had accelerated sharply since the pandemic, with the increase particularly pronounced among young women.
In women aged 20 to 24, the number of diagnoses was 159 per cent higher than would have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends.
The rate of new ADHD diagnoses has also more than doubled in just three years.
In 2021, around one person in every 1,000 was newly diagnosed with ADHD. By 2024, that had risen to around two-and-a-half people in every 1,000 – an increase of 146 per cent.
The latest NHS figures for England underline the scale of the increase in treatment.
Around 268,000 adults were prescribed stimulants and other medicines used for ADHD in the latest quarter, compared with fewer than 47,000 in the same period in 2019.
The increase of 474 per cent means that almost six times as many adults are now receiving the medicines as before the pandemic.
The rise in adults being prescribed medication has far outstripped the increase in children’s prescriptions, with the number of under-18s prescribed the drugs increasing by 89 per cent during the same period, from 67,006 to 126,696.
Overall, the number of patients identified as receiving the medicines has more than tripled, rising from 114,743 in the first quarter of 2019-20 to 395,455 in the first quarter of 2026-27 – an increase of 245 per cent.
The volume of medicines prescribed has also surged. In the year ending in the first quarter of 2026-27, 4.59 million prescriptions were issued for central-nervous-system stimulants and other drugs commonly used for ADHD, compared with 1.64 million in the equivalent period seven years earlier – an increase of 179 per cent.
The figures do not include private prescriptions, which have also risen sharply amid long waits for NHS assessments.
Care Quality Commission figures show that private prescriptions for lisdexamfetamine, one of the main drugs used to treat ADHD, almost doubled in independent primary care in a single year, from 206,206 items in 2024 to 408,229 in 2025 – an increase of 98 per cent.
The NHS figures also exclude drugs prescribed in hospitals and prisons.
The number of people waiting for ADHD assessments has risen more than tenfold since the pandemic.
Around 270,000 children and young people were waiting for an ADHD assessment in December 2025, compared with about 21,000 in April 2019.
NHS officials cautioned that the prescribing figures could not be used to determine how many people had ADHD. The data cover a group of medicines primarily used to treat the condition, but some can also be prescribed for other reasons.