What Is Post-Diagnostic Support for ADHD, and Why Is the UK Finally Funding It?

Post-diagnostic support is the practical help that continues after someone receives an ADHD diagnosis: the coaching, tools, follow-up appointments and outcome tracking that come after the report, not the assessment itself. For most of the last decade, UK ADHD care has quietly stopped at the point of diagnosis. Two government reviews published a week apart in October 2026 say that has to change, and what they recommend has real implications for how care gets built from here.

Getting assessed for ADHD is hard enough on its own. Long waiting lists, confusing referral routes, and the cost of going private if you cannot wait, all before anyone tells you whether what you have been living with has a name. But the harder problem, the one that gets talked about far less, is what happens the day after the letter arrives. For a lot of people, the honest answer is: not much. You get a diagnosis, maybe a medication review, and then you are on your own to work out what it actually means for your Tuesday afternoons.

Why Has Post-Diagnostic ADHD Support Become Such a Big Deal in 2026?

Because two independent reviews, commissioned separately and published within a week of each other, arrived at the same uncomfortable conclusion: diagnosis has been treated as the finish line of ADHD care in the UK, when it should be closer to the starting line. The Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity, set up by the Department for Work and Pensions and chaired by Professor Amanda Kirby, published its final report and recommendations on 2 October 2026. One week later, on 9 October 2026, the independent review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy with Professor Sir Simon Wessely and Professor Gillian Baird as vice-chairs, published its own final report. Neither review was designed as a response to the other, which makes it more notable that they landed on the same core argument from completely different angles, one through the lens of employment and the other through health and care services.

Both reviews also pushed back on a diagnosis-led model of support, where you can only access help once you have a formal label. A separate Ombudsman report published in August 2026 made a similar argument from the patient complaints side, which means three major, independently commissioned reviews have now converged on the same problem inside two months. That is not a coincidence of timing so much as a sign that the current system has been quietly failing people in a specific, consistent way for a while.

What Did the Fonagy Review Actually Recommend About Post-Diagnostic Care?

The Fonagy review recommends bringing the diagnostic process for ADHD and autism under Care Quality Commission regulation, and restricting direct advertising of NHS-funded ADHD and autism assessments. The review's scope covered changes in prevalence and demand, the benefits and risks of diagnosis itself, how well current services respond once someone is diagnosed, and recommendations for reform, and the government has said the findings will feed into a forthcoming Mental Health Strategy that includes strengthened regulation of assessments and a review of how they are advertised.

One finding worth sitting with: the review found that population-level rates of ADHD and autism are broadly stable, while mental distress has increased substantially among children and young people over the same period. In other words, the review did not find evidence of mass overdiagnosis, which has been a recurring and often unkind media narrative. What it found instead is that more people are struggling, and that the system built to catch them has not kept pace. That distinction matters, because it reframes the conversation away from "are too many people getting diagnosed" and towards the actual question, which is whether people get anything useful once they are.

What Did the DWP's Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity Say?

The panel's central recommendation is a needs-led approach to support rather than a diagnosis-led one: workplace support should respond to what someone actually struggles with, not wait for a formal diagnosis to arrive first, because people with the same diagnosis often need different adjustments, and different conditions can create overlapping challenges. The panel's chair, Professor Amanda Kirby, put it plainly in the government's press release: "Neurodivergent people have enormous talent to offer the economy," and "our report shows that when neurodivergent people get the support they need, everybody benefits." Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden added that "when we get the right support in place, neurodivergent people thrive at work," calling it good for the individual, the business and the economy.

The panel backed up the case with numbers that are hard to ignore. In 2024/25, only 34% of disabled people with autism were in work, compared with 55% of disabled people overall, a gap the government has linked to £3.5 billion of disability employment funding committed by the end of the decade. The business case for supporting neurodivergent employees properly has been building for a while, and this report puts government weight behind it rather than leaving it to individual employers to work out alone.

Is the NHS Actually Going to Pay for Post-Diagnostic Support?

Partly, and it is worth being precise about where things currently stand rather than overselling it. NHS England's 2026/27 ADHD and Autism Payment Guidance, published March 2026 as part of that year's NHS Payment Scheme, already sets out national expectations and funding mechanisms for ADHD and autism services, and NHS England has said separately that it is considering a longer-term national approach to how diagnostic and follow-up work gets paid for together, rather than funding assessment as a one-off event disconnected from what happens next. As Romi's founder, I spend a lot of time talking to assessment clinics and commissioners, and the direction of travel in those conversations is consistent with what both reviews recommend: funding that follows the person past the diagnosis, not just up to it.

What that means practically is that clinics and assessment providers are being asked to do two things at once that are properly difficult on a thin budget: find cost-effective ways to support people before and after a diagnosis, and start tracking and reporting how those patients actually do over time. Both are hard to do well without the right tooling, which is exactly the gap a product like Romi is built to sit inside, collecting outcome data in the background without adding a single extra minute to a clinician's day.

What Does Good Post-Diagnostic ADHD Support Actually Look Like?

Based on what both reviews recommend and what actually moves the needle for someone's day-to-day functioning, good post-diagnostic support tends to share a few features, regardless of who is providing it:

1. It continues past the report. A diagnosis explains why things have been hard. It does not, on its own, reduce a single symptom, so support has to be something that keeps showing up after the appointment ends, not a document you file away.
2. It is proactive, not just reactive. Waiting for someone to ask for help, especially someone newly diagnosed and still working out what support even looks like for them, means a lot of people fall through. Good support checks in rather than waiting to be chased.
3. It tracks outcomes, not just attendance. Knowing whether someone's functioning has actually improved, not just whether they turned up to a review appointment, is the difference the Fonagy review is pushing providers towards, and it is properly hard to do manually at scale.
4. It does not require a second diagnosis to access. Workplace adjustments, structure, and tools that work with an ADHD brain should be available whether or not someone has formally named every part of what they are dealing with. You do not need a diagnosis to ask for reasonable adjustments at work, and the same logic applies to day-to-day support.
5. It is cheap enough for a stretched clinic to actually offer. Every recommendation in these reviews lands on services already short on time and money. Support that requires another hour of clinician time per patient will not survive contact with a real NHS waiting list, however good the idea sounds in a report.

What Should You Do If You Were Diagnosed and Then Nothing Happened?

If you recognise the pattern, diagnosis, brief medication conversation, then silence, you are not alone, and you do not have to wait for national policy to catch up before you build your own version of post-diagnostic support:

1. Go back to your GP or clinic and ask specifically what follow-up is available. Services vary hugely by area, and some support that exists is never actively offered unless you ask for it by name.
2. Separate what medication can and cannot do for you. Medication helps many people, but it is not a complete answer on its own, and the practical strategies that help while waiting for an assessment keep helping afterwards too.
3. Build structure around your actual patterns, not generic advice. A diagnosis gives you language for your experience. What changes your days is specific, personal structure built around how your particular brain works.
4. Decide deliberately what to tell your workplace, rather than defaulting to silence. There is a real trade-off either way, worth making on purpose, and good employers are increasingly expected to support you whether or not you disclose a formal diagnosis.
5. Use something built to provide the follow-up the system often cannot. This is precisely the gap Romi exists to fill: consistent, low-effort support that continues long after any single appointment ends.

How Romi Helps With Post-Diagnostic Support

• Romi is a clinically backed digital companion built specifically for the gap these reviews are describing: the space after a diagnosis where structured, ongoing support is supposed to exist but very often does not
• It helps people with ADHD function better and feel better day to day, collecting outcome data in the background over time, which answers exactly the kind of "how are patients actually doing" question the Fonagy review wants services to be able to report on
• For clinics and assessment providers, it offers a cost-effective way to provide real post-diagnostic support without adding extra clinician hours, which is the practical constraint every review runs into eventually
• Romi was built by a team that includes neurodivergent people, so the support reflects lived experience of exactly this gap between getting a diagnosis and actually being helped, not a generic checklist
• Romi is currently running pilots with a small number of assessment clinics to build this exact post-diagnostic layer into their care pathway ahead of wider national change

Is This Just Optimistic Spin on Two Government Reports?

No, and it is worth being honest about the limits here. Review recommendations are not law. Neither report changes NHS commissioning the day it is published, and there is plenty in both documents that reasonable people, including people who work in this space every day, disagree with. Regulating assessments under the Care Quality Commission, for instance, could raise quality, or it could add friction that makes already-long waiting lists longer if it is not resourced properly. Restricting how NHS-funded assessments are advertised might stop some seriously poor-quality private providers from misleading people, or it might make it harder for people to find a legitimate route to assessment in the first place. Good policy on paper does not automatically become good policy in practice, and both reviews will take real time, likely years, to show up as a different experience for someone sitting in a GP waiting room today.

What is actually encouraging is the direction, not the certainty of the destination. Three independent reviews in two months agreeing that diagnosis cannot keep being treated as the endpoint of ADHD and autism care is a meaningful shift in how the UK talks about this. The clinics and services that start building real post-diagnostic support now, rather than waiting for a tariff or a regulation to force the issue, are the ones best placed when funding does catch up with the recommendations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is post-diagnostic support for ADHD?

Post-diagnostic support is the ongoing, practical help that continues after someone receives an ADHD diagnosis, including follow-up care, coaching, structure-building tools and outcome tracking. It is distinct from the assessment process itself, which ends once a diagnosis is given.

What did the Fonagy review recommend about ADHD and autism assessments?

The independent review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy and published 9 October 2026, recommends bringing ADHD and autism assessments under Care Quality Commission regulation and restricting direct advertising of NHS-funded assessments, as part of raising the quality and consistency of care around diagnosis.

What did the DWP's Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity recommend?

The panel, chaired by Professor Amanda Kirby and published 2 October 2026, recommended a needs-led approach to workplace support rather than a diagnosis-led one, wider adoption of Universal Design principles in workplaces, and strengthened disability employment policy, backed by £3.5 billion of government funding committed by the end of the decade.

Does the NHS currently fund post-diagnostic ADHD support?

NHS England's 2026/27 ADHD and Autism Payment Guidance, published March 2026, sets out current national funding expectations for ADHD and autism services. NHS England has indicated it is exploring a longer-term national approach to funding assessment and follow-up care together, though no confirmed national tariff for post-diagnostic follow-up has been published yet.

Do these reviews mean ADHD is overdiagnosed?

No. The Fonagy review specifically found that population-level rates of ADHD and autism are broadly stable, while mental distress has increased substantially among children and young people over the same period. It found no evidence that overdiagnosis is occurring at scale.

What can I do if I was diagnosed with ADHD and received no follow-up support?

Go back to your GP or clinic and ask specifically what follow-up support exists in your area, since it is often available but not actively offered. You can also build your own structure around how your brain actually works, decide deliberately whether to disclose at work, and use tools like Romi that provide ongoing support without requiring another appointment.

Will these government reviews actually change anything soon?

Not immediately. Review recommendations are not legally binding and do not change NHS commissioning or funding on the day they are published. Both reviews are expected to feed into longer-term policy, including a forthcoming Mental Health Strategy, which will likely take years rather than months to change what support looks like in practice.

By Josh Budd | Founder @ Romi