The HSE route in Cork and Kerry

As of a letter sent by the HSE's head of mental health services in Cork and Kerry, GPs in the area can no longer refer new adult patients into the public ADHD pathway at all. At the time of that letter, there were 413 adults on ADHD waiting lists in Cork City and north Cork, plus a further 217 across Kerry and West Cork — over 630 people already waiting. The adult ADHD teams are meant to have six full-time-equivalent clinicians and currently have 4.5.

Facing that gap, the service stopped accepting new GP referrals for ADHD assessment and treatment, and is prioritising people with moderate-to-severe ADHD who also have a co-occurring mental health condition and are already under a mental health team's care, or young people transitioning from adolescent services. For milder cases, the HSE's interim suggestion has been the ADHD Ireland app rather than a clinical referral — which at least one GP has publicly questioned as adequate. In practical terms: if you're a Cork or Kerry adult with suspected ADHD and no existing mental health team involvement, the public pathway currently isn't accepting you, not just running slowly.

The private route

This is the context in which private assessment in Cork isn't just faster than usual — for a lot of people right now, it's the only route available at all. The two questions still matter, though: is the quoted price the full process (assessment, titration, ongoing prescribing), or just the first appointment, and what happens if your GP won't take over prescribing afterwards. A closed public referral pathway doesn't change either of those.

What to actually do

• If you already have a GP referral in the queue from before the pause, check with your GP or the service directly on where it stands rather than assuming it's been processed.
• If you don't yet have a referral, know that new GP referrals for ADHD specifically are not currently being accepted in Cork and Kerry — private assessment is realistically the only near-term option.
• If speed and a clear all-in price (not just the first appointment) matter to you, that's exactly the gap we're exploring whether to fill.