MPs urge UK health department's top civil servant to step back from ADHD clinic regulation
Four UK MPs want Samantha Jones, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, to take no part in tightening regulation of private ADHD and autism clinics, citing her recent ties to provider ADHD360. The department says there is no conflict of interest.
Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are demanding that Samantha Jones, permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in England, play no role in government plans to tighten regulation of private ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and autism clinics. Four MPs say her recent links to the sector amount to a serious conflict of interest.
Why recusal is being sought
Ministers are drawing up plans to better regulate private clinics offering assessment, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and autism. The market has grown rapidly in recent years as people have struggled to get care through the NHS. Last week the government accepted the findings of a review by Prof Peter Fonagy, which raised concerns about the consistency and quality of private providers' assessments and about built-in financial incentives to diagnose and treat. Health secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged a much tougher regime.
Jones oversees the implementation of government health policy decisions, so she would be expected to advise ministers on this issue.
Links to ADHD360
Jones was appointed permanent secretary on 22 April 2025. A month later she was still chair, a director and a shareholder of the private care provider Keys Group when it bought ADHD360 for £22.5m on 16 May. She was also an operating partner at G Square Capital, the private equity firm that owns Keys Group. She sold her shares and resigned her roles in early June 2025, before starting at the DHSC on 16 June.
The NHS has paid ADHD360 just over £26m since 2020.
Labour MP Ben Coleman said she should recuse herself, as she has done over Palantir. Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Helen Morgan demanded she do so immediately.
In July, Jones stepped back from the decision on whether to extend Palantir's £330m contract with the NHS. In June she apologised after being reprimanded by the Civil Service Commission for breaching lobbying rules.
An ally of Jones called her link to ADHD360 "very tenuous". A DHSC spokesperson said there is no conflict of interest and that all interests were properly declared.
