Dr. Sonia Morris:

At the moment, there is no safeguarding for bad diagnoses. The Senator mentioned checking the register. Psychology is unregulated. There is no register of psychologists who are fit for work and anybody could call themselves a psychologist and start working, which is a huge issue. Even within that, as not everybody is an expert in ADHD the standard of assessment varies considerably, not just within psychology of course but across disciplines. There is no safeguarding for individuals within that. It is clinical opinion, so if somebody tells a person that the diagnosis is ADHD and then the person goes somewhere else and is told that it is absolutely not ADHD, there is no recourse of action to get a refund of the poor assessment. There is no complaints process in the private sector either. Oversight needs to be established, whatever way that might look. There also needs to be a means for the public to be able to submit complaints against private practitioners and for there to actually be some repercussions for a poor standard of assessment in the private sector.