If you are from the United Kingdom you will not have failed to notice that a general election is imminent. Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the election will be on 7th June and adders.org believed it would be a good idea to put questions relating to ADD/ADHD to all the main parties involved and hopefully get their reaction to post on our website.
We asked our UK website visitors, who would be voting in the forthcoming election, if they wanted to post questions they would like answered by the political parties on our special Election 2001 forum message board.
A similar exercise was carried out at the last election and the replies were not very forthcoming. This time however, we are hoping that because of adders.org's popularity, we may get a better response. According to a recent independent survey that we didn't even know about, adders.org is ranked at position 1153 in the UK's top 5,000 trafficked UK websites. Hopefully, the fact that we receive over 4,000 unique visitors a day, will make the Parties reply.
I gave a deadline of 16th May 2001 for questions to be posted. I have tried to summarize them as follows and hope I have included the points raised plus I have added a couple of our own:
1. What are your party's proposals for education of those with special needs and behavioural problems including appropriate training for teachers?
2. What would your party do about the 18 month to 2 year waiting list for initial appointments for potential adult and many child ADD/ADHD sufferers?
3. I think many people would agree that medication is not the only answer for conditions like ADHD but there are little or no provisions or resources available on the NHS for support and aftercare for children or adults. What would your party do about this issue?
4. A number of reports have indicated that between 60% and 80% of crime may be committed by those suffering with conditions like ADHD. Would your party support and fund resources for early detection of ADHD in Primary and Junior schools and also facilities to assess young offenders?
I have sent these to the main parties and hope to post links to their replies below as and when any are received.
Simon Hensby - adders.org