Young Research Advisor Lotte shares her experience accessing healthcare systems as a neurodivergent young person and offers top tips for professionals and young people.
The struggles
My name is Lotte, and I am an autistic young person who has experienced a lack of accessibility to NHS services for people like me.
Accessing healthcare can feel like a minefield. From professionals not understanding that we need help in slightly different ways to others, to appointments and communication not being accessible or people using confusing language... the list could go on.
Why it happens
It can be easy to think and feel that healthcare isn't built for people like us. Although healthcare professionals try, in my opinion, the NHS just simply wasn’t designed for a neurodiverse young person.
In my own experience, I think this is because practitioners aren't trained to communicate with people like myself. I am autistic, and it can often feel overwhelming, too much or confusing for me. Or appointments booked weeks in advance cause weeks of worry that builds up inside you. Or you can't physically get to your appointment because it's located in a place that you need to take two buses and a taxi to get there, and that's not accessible either.
In my experience, the NHS tends to be built on a one-size-fits-all approach, which simply does not fit the neurodiverse population. Often, the way services are run feels inflexible; for example, having to phone at 08:00 to secure an appointment can be challenging for those with executive function difficulties, demand avoidance, or my biggest challenge - phone anxiety. Because of these things, how the NHS is run makes accessing healthcare more stressful for thousands of other young people like me.
The impact
While researching the theme in greater depth, I came across this quote from the organisation Contact: for families with disabled children, who did some research in March 2025 at Alder Hay Children's Hospital:
“Young people and parent carers said they often felt judged, dismissed and discriminated against, due to a lack of understanding about their culture and language. As a result, interactions with health services were often avoided because of the anxiety and trauma it can cause.”
I think that this sums up how lack of neurodiversity accessibility in healthcare can impact and make young people feel.
Tips for young people
Like me, you might feel anxious, worried or scared about accessing healthcare because you are neurodiverse. Remember you are not alone in how you feel. Here are my three tips to help make accessing healthcare a little bit easier:
- Bring a trusted person to appointments with you. They know you best and can help advocate with you for what you need.
- Record conversations with professionals, so you have a record and something to come back to if you forget or don’t understand what is being said.
- Write down what you want to say. This helps you have structured conversations and helps you feel more in control. You can maybe even go through it with a trusted adult beforehand.
Tips for professionals
If a healthcare professional is reading this, I would like you to know:
- You should treat people as individuals.
- Accept that some people find things harder than others and may think differently from your other patients.
- Be kind and understanding.
- Ask questions about how I can make this easier for you, and try to use these as much as possible. For me, I would like you to use my preferred method of communication.