Leanne Marskell

It's a really great initiative that Australia is doing and making ADHD support more accessible to more people but without having the infrastructure in place it's going to actually be really hard for any GP to get that.

Right.

Well, it's really important that the way the training and reforms are taking place are focusing on what actually happens after a diagnosis.

It's a really great initiative that Australia is doing and making ADHD support more accessible to more people.

But without having the infrastructure in place, it's going to actually be really hard for any GP to get that

right because they don't have the backing of, for example, enough time, enough funding, enough support and guidance from a centralised source that would be the government.

The most important thing is actually collaborating with patients and that's why GPs are really well placed to support people when treating them for ADHD in any way.

Because they will have likely had a long history of supporting that patient.

They know them, they know their background, their family, etc.

But the real challenge right now is that that is a huge policy gap.

So I think empowering them with as much information as possible and working with patients so that they can provide information before, after the consult and they can feel comfortable

independent and able to take that diagnosis and they know what to do with it instead of feeling what we often call diagnosed and dumped.

I would say that the baseline that every GP should meet would actually be to have support in place because the training itself, I actually have completed one of the training pathways for GPs in one state and out of curiosity, but it's just very focused on what ADHD is and the pharmacology behind different medication types.

but not what to do if you are faced with, for example, someone that believes they have ADHD, but maybe as the practitioner you disagree.

Essentially what practitioners should be looking for is symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity and how these have appeared over someone's life and whether it's creating a significant level of disorder.

And that is really difficult to do in a short consultation time, especially if you want to do it in the terms of talking to their family members, etc.

What I'm trying to help the GPs do is actually, again, collaborating with the patients.

So explaining to them that a diagnosis exists.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you do or don't have ADHD.

It's just about whether you're meeting the criteria for what is called a disorder because it has to impair your life.