The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing calls to end non-means-tested payments for two common health conditions, following a survey of 1,000 GPs. The poll suggests that diagnoses for ADHD and autism are being given out “too easily” to children, amid a rise in DWP handouts.
The report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that 75 per cent of GPs agreed that “the clinical boundaries for diagnosing autism or ADHD have expanded to include behaviours that would previously have been considered within the normal range.” Additionally, 66 per cent agreed that “clinical diagnoses for autism or ADHD are given out to children and young people too easily where behavioural interventions would be more appropriate.”
Financial Incentives and Parental Requests
The survey also revealed that 57 per cent of GPs agreed that “financial entitlements linked to autism or ADHD diagnoses strongly influence parental requests for assessment.” Data shows that claims for child disability living allowance (CDLA), which is not means-tested, doubled from 420,000 children in 2016 to almost 900,000 last year.
Baroness Maclean of Redditch, a Conservative Party peer who wrote the foreword to the report, stated: “Something has gone badly wrong with how we support children with additional needs in England, but almost no one in public life is willing to say so. I hope this report triggers the honest debate this country urgently needs.”
Political Reactions
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, commented: “The welfare system offers families a significant financial incentive to medicalise their child’s difficulties.” Joe Shalam, policy director at the CSJ, added: “Children’s development has been hit by the tidal forces of social media and screen time, falling behavioural standards and the devastation of the pandemic. But it is also clear that the systems designed to support vulnerable children are simply not built for a world in which ever more children are labelled with medical diagnoses for entirely normal, if unruly, behaviour.”
The report has sparked debate over the appropriateness of current diagnostic practices and the role of financial incentives in the welfare system.
