Few British growth industries have been more successful than the treatment of patients with ADHD. Cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are booming, with a staggering 20,000 people a month referred for assessments. Yet with predicted waiting lists stretching to ten years in some parts of the country, few pretend the situation is a happy one – or that we can afford it.
The Business of ADHD
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has admitted that the NHS cannot cope with an epidemic that is fast becoming a crisis. Faced with huge demand, health service chiefs have resorted to paying for tens of thousands of patients to be assessed and treated privately at vast expense. In some cases, up to one pound in every three spent by the taxpayer leaks out in private profit. Real-term spending on disability benefits primarily related to ADHD has tripled between 2020/21 and 2024/25, from £193 million to £577 million.
Dr Phil Anderton is among those private operators who have done rather well from this profitable industry. The 62-year-old has been hailed for ‘revolutionising’ care for sufferers. The clinic he established, ADHD360 – said to be the largest of its kind in Europe – has helped tens of thousands of sufferers since 2018. Dr Anderton and his wife, Samantha, earned an estimated £15 million when they sold the clinic to a private equity-backed firm last year.
The registered address for his new business venture, Anderton Aviation and ADHD Ltd, is a sprawling four-bedroom country pile in Lincolnshire, complete with hot tub and fire pit. Anderton has also posted photos of an Aston Martin with a personalised number plate on what appears to be his Instagram account.
NHS Reliance on Private Clinics
With an estimated 700,000 people in England on waiting lists for assessments, GPs can speed up the process by referring patients to private clinics, with the NHS footing the bill. As many as half of the NHS’s assessments are carried out privately, and it is estimated to have paid £128 million to independent clinics last year, up from £36 million two years ago.
Revenues are booming. Turnover at ADHD360 increased by more than 80 per cent to £22.5 million in 2024, with gross profits up to £9.7 million at a margin of 43 per cent. In an interview, Dr Anderton acknowledged that the balance sheet matters but insisted that helping people improve their lives was more important.
Yet job adverts for ‘patient success advisers’ at ADHD360 describe how employees are expected to ‘upsell treatment plans’ and ‘discuss benefits of our patient proposition and convert into patient commitment by securing payment for assessments’. ADHD360’s ‘essential care package’ has an upfront cost of £1,740, while its ‘comprehensive care package’ is priced at £2,850.
Quality Concerns
Dr Anderton terminated an interview after being asked about a 2023 BBC Panorama investigation, which highlighted concerns about the quality of ADHD assessments at private clinics. As part of the investigation, an undercover reporter was diagnosed with ADHD and offered powerful drugs after flawed assessments at three private clinics. An earlier, rigorous assessment by an NHS consultant psychiatrist concluded that he did not have the condition.
ADHD360 was also at the centre of controversy when a patient it had diagnosed was told she could win a payout as high as £126,000 because her employer failed to provide noise-cancelling headphones, even though she had a suitable pair at home.
Private Equity Involvement
ADHD360 is one of three clinics snapped up by private equity-backed firms in recent years. Between them, they reported more than £30 million in gross profit in their latest accounts. David Rowland, director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, says ADHD clinics are popular with private equity firms because they represent an ‘opportunity to make quick profits’.
Psicon, set up in 1998, was sold for £33.2 million in 2023 to OneBright, backed by private equity firm EMK Capital. The sale resulted in a bumper payday for the Conradie family, who netted around £20 million. Psicon made net profits of almost £6 million in 2024.
Over-diagnosis Debate
Some experts are convinced that ADHD is now being over-diagnosed. Sir Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has warned that some private clinics ‘do not have the standards that we would expect and seem to make the diagnosis incredibly easy’. Joanna Moncrieff, a consultant psychiatrist at University College London, says many consultants are ‘really uneasy’ with the spike in diagnoses and ‘feel that they’re being asked to treat people who don’t have very significant problems’.
She believes some clinics are ‘cashing in on a social phenomenon… and, by doing that, helping to drive the whole phenomenon’.
Financial Sustainability
NHS spending on ADHD is set to reach £314 million this year, more than double the year’s £150 million budget. That means other services could face cuts to offset the £164 million overspend. Rowland is calling for a cap on the profits of private companies delivering NHS care.
In the meantime, the system is failing those who need it most. Waiting times can now stretch to a decade, while some have had to ration their medication because of the costs involved. Private clinics have even taken to offering buy now, pay later services.
