Access to Work ADHD Support
When the Wrong Support Creates Another Barrier.
If you work with Access to Work, or you’re currently trying to get support through the scheme, you’ll probably already know how much attention it's been getting recently.
Long waiting times, backlogs, inconsistent communication and people having to wait months for decisions have all come under scrutiny.
In June 2026, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee raised serious concerns about the way the scheme was being administered and the impact delays were having on people trying to stay in work. More recent DWP figures show that between April and July 2026, the average wait from first contact to an Access to Work decision was 125.6 days. UK Parliament Committees
From my perspective as an ADHD-focused support worker, though, there is another issue that comes up again and again.
Getting funding approved is only part of it.
Access to Work ADHD support
The type of support being funded has to match the barrier the person is experiencing.
More and more I'm hearing from people who tell me they explained on their support applications that they need practical, ongoing support with things like executive function, prioritisation, workload planning, getting started, staying on track and following through, only to then be steered towards either traditional virtual assistance or a short block of ADHD coaching.
Both can be valuable.
But neither is the same as the support the person has asked for.
“That would actually make me spiral more”
This is what one of my recent clients told me when traditional VA support was offered.
Her concern was that it would actually make things harder.
She would suddenly have another person waiting for work from her, while she was already struggling to identify what needed doing, organise it and decide where to begin.
In her words, she didn’t know what she was supposed to give them.
And that is the difference that keeps getting missed.
A traditional VA will generally expect some level of delegation:
Here is the task.
Here is what needs doing.
Here are the instructions.
But if the person is seeking support because they are struggling to organise their workload in the first place, asking them to arrive with a clear list of instructions only creates another job for them.
You don’t need to organise everything before we start.
I say this a lot to my clients:
You do not need to come to me with a perfectly organised task list.
Sometimes the first thing we do is simply look at everything currently sitting on their plate.
What is genuinely urgent?
What has been hanging around for weeks?
What feels enormous but could be broken into smaller actions?
What needs their personal attention?
Where would body doubling help?
What has disappeared from view altogether?
What can I practically take off their plate?
The task list often comes from the support session.
I don’t expect them to create the structure first and then hand it to me.
Helping create that structure is part of my role.
This is enabling support.
This is also an important distinction within the Access to Work ADHD support itself.
DWP’s current staff guidance says support workers should generally not do the customer’s job for them, and distinguishes between support that enables the customer to perform their role and support that replaces them in doing it.
That is much closer to the support I provide.
My clients continue running their businesses.
They make the decisions.
They continue doing the work that belongs to them.
My role is to provide support around the areas that can otherwise make that work extremely difficult to manage consistently.
That might include:
prioritising and planning the workload
breaking work into manageable actions
prompting and task initiation
body doubling
accountability
keeping deadlines and unfinished work visible
helping maintain momentum between sessions
It is support that helps the person do their own work more effectively.
Coaching is different again.
I have also seen ADHD coaching suggested as an alternative when somebody has asked for ongoing practical support.
Again, ADHD coaching can be incredibly useful.
It can help someone understand their ADHD, recognise patterns, explore strategies and become much more aware of what is getting in their way.
But understanding the problem and having consistent help to implement changes are two different things.
Someone can know perfectly well that they need to prioritise better.
They can understand time blindness.
They can know they need to break projects down.
They can have a folder full of strategies.
And they can still sit down on Tuesday morning with fifteen things competing for attention and have absolutely no idea what should happen first.
That is where practical, ongoing support can fill a very different role.
We are not just talking about what might help.
We are looking at this week’s actual workload and doing it together.
The right support should reduce the load.
This is the part I find frustrating as a support worker.
By the time someone reaches me, they have often already spent a lot of energy trying to explain to case managers what they need.
And when the solution offered doesn’t match that need, they end up having to explain themselves all over again.
I’ve also seen the opposite.
The relief when someone realises:
“Oh. I don’t have to have all of this organised before we start.”
The progress that can happen when a task that has been unfinished for months is finally broken down and worked through.
The confidence that starts to come back when the workload no longer feels so chaotic in their head.
This is what makes my job so rewarding, but it is also why the distinction matters.
The question shouldn’t only be:
“What type of support can we fund?”
It also needs to be:
“What barrier is this person actually experiencing, and what kind of support will enable them to overcome it?”
Because the right support can remove a barrier.
The wrong support just becomes something else the person has to manage.
Need Some Practical Right Now?
If you’re self-employed with ADHD and feeling overwhelmed by everything competing for your attention, my 2-Hour ADHD Business Reset is a focused working session to help you get clear on what matters most, break things down into manageable next steps and create a realistic plan to move forward.
No ongoing commitment. Just two focused hours to help you get unstuck.
2 hours · €85
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