Matthew’s Law
A practical pilot. A UK-wide ambition.
Our ambition is a UK-wide system that recognises possible ADHD earlier and funds the route through assessment, treatment and continuing support.
The first step is a smaller pilot in England: demonstrate what works, measure the benefits and costs, then use the evidence to shape wider change. The national ambition remains.
Matthew’s Law is a campaign proposal for discussion, not an enacted law or an approved NHS programme.
Why earlier help matters
Matthew’s name carries our commitment to earlier understanding, timely care and support before crisis.
People and families:
Earlier understanding, practical support and appropriate care could improve daily life, wellbeing and participation. These are benefits the pilot would measure.
Education and work:
Recognising needs sooner could help people stay engaged in learning, work and family life, with support while they wait and adjustments when needed.
A wider UK opportunity:
Better care could reduce avoidable harm and costs across public services and the wider economy. We will measure achievable benefits and keep the national potential visible.
The pilot and the national opportunity
Pilot: £7.79 million
Six local areas in England. Up to 6,000 people with existing concerns. A proposed 42-month programme covering enquiry, assessment, indicated treatment and follow-up.
The indicative cash envelope includes a £350,000 development stage, 15% contingency and assumed inflation. Independent evaluation would test access, quality, safety, fairness and value before expansion. Funding and approvals are still required.
Rebuilt cost benchmark
About £2.11 billion in illustrative cash for the costed England components across three annual cohorts. This updates the original £724 million assumptions with clinical care, fuller training, continuing care, overhead, contingency and inflation.
This is not a complete UK budget. School delivery, national programme work and country-specific implementation still need costing. See the detailed reconciliation below and in the revised UK proposal.
UK-wide potential
The independent ADHD Taskforce cites around £17 billion in annual costs to the UK economy from unsupported ADHD.
For illustration, a 5%, 10% or 20% reduction would represent £0.85 billion, £1.70 billion or £3.40 billion in gross annual societal value. These are scenarios to investigate, not forecast savings or NHS cash. Programme costs must still be paid.
Read the ADHD Taskforce evidence
01.
The 12 October 2026 proposal: six sites, up to 6,000 people, the £7.79 million envelope, clinical safeguards and independent evaluation. Original dated document, 28 pages (PDF).
02.
The revised national proposal: the UK ambition, pilot-first route, benefits, corrected cost assumptions and what a full four-nation business case still needs. Updated 14 November 2026 (PDF).
03.
Share your experience, discuss a delivery or research partnership, or help develop the next stage. Families, professionals, educators and community organisations are welcome.
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Read both proposals and get involved
Benefits, costs and the route to wider change
What would the pilot deliver?
The six-site England demonstration would support up to 6,000 adults and children with concerns consistent with ADHD. It would connect assisted enquiry, support while waiting, assessment by appropriately qualified clinicians with ADHD training and expertise, appropriate treatment and 12 months of treatment follow-up.
The intended benefits are earlier help, a clearer route to care, improved day-to-day functioning and fairer access. Independent evaluation would compare experience, safety, outcomes and resource use with usual care.
The proposed access ambitions are a diagnostic decision within six months and indicated treatment within eight weeks of that decision. These are goals to test, not achieved results. The budget assumes 2,100 assessments, 1,260 diagnoses and 882 medication starts; these are cost assumptions, never quotas.
This clinical pilot is for people with existing concerns. A definitive trial of universal school screening would need separate research and funding.
What does the pilot cost?
The proposed 42-month cash envelope is £7.79 million. The £350,000 development stage is included within it. The breakdown, rounded, is:
• £4.092m: direct clinical care.
• £0.409m: non-pay delivery overhead.
• £2.059m: programme setup, coordination, evaluation and reserve.
• £0.984m: 15% delivery contingency.
• £0.241m: illustrative inflation allowance.
The constant-price total is £7.54m; the cash total assumes 3% annual price growth. Prices and activity need validation. No speculative savings are deducted from the funding request.
Continuing care needs a separate commitment: if all 882 assumed medication starters continued beyond their funded first year, medication and routine monitoring would be about £815,000 a year including overhead, before inflation and extra needs. A funded handover is required; care must not stop at a budget anniversary.
What is the UK-wide ambition?
The original ambition remains a UK-wide system for earlier identification, including the possibility of screening at school transition points, alongside competent clinical assessment, treatment, continuing support and public accountability.
Potential benefits extend across health, learning, employment, family life and public services. A smaller pilot is a manageable first step towards finding out which parts work, for whom and at what cost. It cannot by itself demonstrate the effectiveness of universal screening.
Current NICE guidance advises against universal ADHD screening in schools. The school-screening ambition therefore needs a separate research and policy route. Screening alone does not diagnose ADHD. Wider delivery would require plans agreed with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, including capacity for the care that follows.
NICE ADHD guidance
What was missing from the national costs?
The original £724m table used mainly England assumptions. It counted £640m of school tools once even though the text described an annual cost, and it did not fund the complete clinical pathway.
The revised reference assumes an initial sweep of 8m school screening episodes plus 1m new-cohort episodes in each of years two and three, and three annual cohorts of 100,000 clinical assessments. These are budgeting assumptions, not an agreed screening programme or a forecast of demand. This 300,000-assessment allowance has not been shown to meet demand from 10m school screening episodes; higher referral or treatment need would increase costs.
Costed components (£m): school tools 800; school training 15; clinician competence training 174.75; IT build and maintenance 44; clinical pathway and first-year care 584.505; clinical overhead 58.4505; earlier-cohort continuing care 116.424. Diagnostic tool allowances are included in clinical care, so the old separate £10m line is removed.
The £1,793.13m component subtotal becomes £2,062.10m with 15% contingency, or £2,106.57m in illustrative cash with the stated 3% inflation profile: about £2.11bn. Legacy prices still need quotations.
Costs continue after these three cohorts. If all 126,000 assumed medication starters continued, medication and routine monitoring alone would require about £116.4m a year including overhead, before inflation, new cohorts and additional needs.
Still to cost: school delivery and consent time, national mobilisation, governance, data assurance, independent evaluation, additional clinical need, tax treatment and the other UK nations. Each extra 10 minutes of staff time across the model’s 10m school episodes adds £58.33m at £35/hour, before contingency and inflation. A complete UK budget must be built country by country.
How should the UK savings be understood?
The original proposal illustrated £3.3–£6.1 billion in possible annual savings. That figure remains part of the campaign’s history and national ambition, but it is not a validated forecast.
The review found that the original calculation treated the £17bn economy-wide burden as healthcare alone, then added education, justice and productivity. Those categories can overlap. A lifetime NEET example also cannot be counted as an annual saving.
A more transparent illustration uses the £17bn reference once:
• 5% reduction: £850m gross societal value a year.
• 10% reduction: £1.70bn a year.
• 20% reduction: £3.40bn a year.
These percentages are assumptions to explore, not measured recoverable shares. Benefits may take years and include effects outside public budgets. They are before programme costs and do not establish net savings or a payback date. UK-wide benefits must not be compared with the England cost benchmark to claim a return on investment.
Source of the £17bn reference
How do we move from pilot to wider change?
1. Develop: use the £350,000 stage within the pilot envelope to agree the protocol, clinical responsibilities, quotations, workforce capacity and continuing-care arrangements.
2. Deliver and evaluate: run the six-site programme with independent scrutiny. Publish access, safety, experience, fairness, outcomes and costs, including what does not work.
3. Build the national case: use measured activity and outcomes to prepare country-specific services and a complete UK business case. Test universal school screening through a separately approved research route.
4. Expand in stages: seek funding and approvals only when benefits, harms, workforce capacity and long-term affordability support the next step.
Our immediate ask is support for this staged route while retaining the UK-wide goal. The 12 October pilot remains a dated discussion document; the revised national proposal records the cost and evidence review of 14 November 2026. Charity, clinical and health-economic sign-off remain pending.
Contact the campaign
Read the parliamentary debate