Josh MacAlister

Josh MacAlister

Labour — Whitehaven and Workington

Speaking in the House of Commons on 19 May 2025

Debate

Mental Health Bill [Lords]

Contribution

Absolutely. We need to support young carers and young people in care. One of the common challenges facing both of those populations is that services sometimes fail to look at what support can be provided to the whole family unit, so I take my hon. Friend’s point. Finally, I will say a few words about a sensitive issue that is a growing trend. Most weeks, I visit a school in my constituency, and there is a growing theme: teachers, and now parents, are raising concerns about the potential over-diagnosis or misdiagnosis of ADHD and mild autism. I raise this point for two reasons: first, because the risk is that the scale of the increase in diagnosis is so great that it may take away much-needed mental health services from those with acute and genuine need; and secondly, because we have yet to grasp the potential negative impacts of treating what may be social challenges as medical disorders. Some 400,000 children are currently awaiting an ADHD assessment, and rates of diagnosis have risen sharply in recent years. Diagnosis varies dramatically depending on where someone lives, who does the assessment and, worryingly, the socioeconomic background of the individual.

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