We're a service dedicated to supporting individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. We do things differently, focusing on delivering high-quality, compassionate care. Our passion is to make a real difference in your life.

At Divergence, our Community offers verified support and information, a smartphone app to connect you with a peer support network, and developing local services to help you navigate your care. Our Clinic provides an initial "Foundation" assessment to outline the support you may benefit from and recommend how to access it. We can diagnose Autism and ADHD and prescribe medications if needed. We're here to guide you every step of the way.

We're located in the North East of England. While we don't offer face-to-face appointments yet, we're planning to open clinics across the North East and Cumbria soon. Stay tuned!

That is a which we agonised over as a team when we set the service up.

The use of the term 'patient' isn't about defining people as being ill. Think in terms of having a smear test at the GP surgery, you're still a patient at that point but (hopefully) aren't ill. There are many other examples. ADHD is an outlier even of psychiatry, never mind medicine, and we agree that ADHD is not about illness. ADHD is about disorder though. We know that is a controversial statement, but if it were just a positive difference then we could define it as difference but it likely wouldn't warrant health care. This may be applied to Autism Spectrum Conditions where we would not consider people a patient once the assessment was completed. The need for prescribed medicines and health care monitoring places people more in the realm of being patients than clients. That does not in any way dismiss the work that went into the service user movement which is important and we do advocate for thinking beyond the medical model heavily on our podcast as well as in our clinical work. There is far more to ADHD care than medicines and monitoring, but that is a central part of it.

Another key issue is the differentiation of patients of our clinic, which is a CQC regulated activity, and clients or users of our community interest company services, which does all of the work that does not relate to the clinical care and support of those of us living with ADHD. The app is home for both groups and that is why we need different language to enable people to find what they are looking for more simply. Being a patient should not be seen as a criticism, or in any way negative, rather as being someone who is receiving care from health care professionals. We aim to create a positive experience of this. We draw on our own experience of being patients of other health care providers for our ADHD as well as our experiences across our careers in psychiatry. We are called divergence because we wanted to diverge from how care was being delivered, rather than any reference to neurodivergence which again is a term that sparks much debate.