ADHD and the postcode lottery

I just thought I'd share this personal story with you. My sister and I both have children with ADHD, my younger son and her older daughter. But the difference in the care we receive is startling and is about to result in legal action on my sister's part.

My son is 5. His problems started the day he had his first vaccination at 9 weeks of age. Once he started school it was immediately recognised by the teachers that he had a behavioural problem (he broke the record for the fastest recommendation for referral to the educational psychologist. They phoned me at lunchtime on his first day to ask if they could start processing the paperwork) so they started the ball rolling and in July of this year we were referred to the Family Services Unit's (FSU) 5-13 team. They have put an action plan in place and have referred him for ADHD assessment, which we've been told will be happening before Christmas. We've been doing a parenting course which has been a fantastic help and, together with the homoeopath, we're seeing huge improvements in his behaviour. He's learning to recognise his triggers and is dealing with them almost entirely by himself.

My sister self-referred when her daughter was 7. She will be 16 next month. Her behaviour was becoming a serious issue and, because of this, her marriage was beginning to suffer. She went to the school and to the doctor and arranged for the referal to the FSU. The whole family went for counselling together and her daughter went for personal counselling, were she was pronounced to be a troubled little girl who was obviously suffering because of the breakdown of her parents' marriage. She continued in counselling and my sister was always excluded from this, which is fair enough since counselling is confidential, even for minors.

Her daughter's behaviour continued to deteriorate. She became obsessive, stalking people, shop-lifting, truanting (she currently has a 30% attendance record), threatening her brother and sister with knives, becoming sexually active (she desperately wants to have a baby) and running away from home. 3 years ago the FSU referred her for psychiatric assessment for schizophrenia, based on their experience of her compared to what everyone else (family, school, doctor) was saying. She was found not to have schizophrenia but the psychiatrist sent a letter to the FSU stating that she required further assessment for ADHD at the earliest possible opportunity. They did nothing. About 18 months ago she was finally assigned a social worker after she went missing for 36 hours. The core assessment they did, which is supposed to be done within 7 weeks, took 8 months. It was full of libel with regard to my sister and her parenting, as well as outright "factual inexactitudes".

My sister began to suffer seriously from depression and her marriage broke down completely, so that she had to leave her home that she'd lived in since she was 5 and take the children with her. If she were on a higher dose of anti-depressants she would be pretty much comatose. 6 weeks ago, after serious complaints were sent by all the family and all her daughter's carers to Social Services, she finally got her re-assessment, where she was pronounced to have ADHD and a conduct disorder and Concerta was recommended. The psychologist told them that because the behaviour was so ingrained, she might never have a normal life. He said that only 20% of children actually leave him with a recommendation for prescription and that without it, she might never know what "normal" really felt like. He sent his findings to the FSU as they are the people who issue the first prescription. They refused to give it to my sister but wouldn't say why. Eventually she had to get my mum onto it. And after 11 phone calls in one day, they finally relented and handed over the prescription.

The change was dramatic and almost instant. She describes the day she took the first dose as the day she changed her life. This is the start of her 3rd week on Concerta and although she's back to her old self by around 8pm, she's havi