Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affects approximately one in 20 school-aged children worldwide. If undiagnosed or untreated, it can significantly affect educational outcomes, emotional wellbeing and family life.
The Government's 10-Year Health Plan clearly outlines ambitions for improving children and young people's mental health.
Focus ADHD was a national programme, delivered by the Health Innovation Network from 2020-2023, which sought to improve the diagnosis rates for ADHD in children and young people, within mental health trusts and paediatric services.
It addressed this challenge through the implementation QbTest by QbTech – a computer-based assessment tool that supports diagnosis.
The digital tool measures the three core indicators of ADHD – attention, impulsivity and motor activity – and when used to supplement clinical assessment can significantly reduce the time to diagnosis, freeing up clinical time and saving money.
Following a successful randomised control trial by the NIHR East Midlands CLAHRC (now the East Midlands ARC) and NIHR MindTech, Health Innovation East Midlands piloted the use of QbTest within three NHS mental health trusts in 2017/18 – with this collaboration providing the evidence base for the national programme.
From 2020 to 2023, the innovation was rolled out via all 15 health innovation networks across 66 NHS trusts, which has now increased to 88 trusts since the programme ended – and it's still used today across all.
Real-world testing, stakeholder engagement and tailored place-based delivery models ensured services were ready and resourced for change. As a result, 80% of NHS children's ADHD services have now adopted QbTest, with the average time from assessment to diagnosis reduced by 153 days.
More than 163,000 young people have benefitted to date, and 2,600 healthcare professionals have been trained to use the system, strengthening workforce capability and consistency.
And the economic impact is substantial: an estimated £55.9m in NHS savings and over 615,000 travel miles avoided by reducing unnecessary clinical appointments. The innovation has also saved over 40,000 appointments and released 132,652 hours of clinical capacity – time that can now be spent with patients who need it most.
What is pivotal is although the formal national programme has ended, the impacts continue to be sustained and continue to accelerate. We can see the evidence that since hospital trust adoption, it has become ‘business as usual' and has transformed how they deliver care for ADHD.
Local change, national impact
This work reflects how our co-ordinated national network, grounded in local expertise, enables innovations to scale and be sustained.
From generating the evidence base to securing funding and supporting clinical staff to embed tools into everyday practice, our deep knowledge and expertise of our local systems enables us to work collaboratively to overcome the implementation challenge – one of the biggest barriers to driving meaningful change across our health and care system.
This is not an invention challenge. We already have an NHS pipeline of proven, evidence based innovations, currently supported by the Health Innovation Network, that, if implemented more widely, could have a national impact on reducing waiting lists, increasing NHS capacity, as well as improving patient outcomes and driving economic growth.
Our guide to innovation implementation, readiness and resourcing shares practical learning from the successful adoption and spread of our national Focus ADHD programme.
You can also find out more about the conditions for successful innovation on our website: https://thehealthinnovationnetwork.co.uk/
If you're interested in learning more about the Health Innovation Network or how to work with us, please get in touch at info@thehealthinnovationnetwork.co.uk
