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ADHD rules by state

ADHD rules in Western Australia

In Western Australia, an adult who needs a stimulant medicine for ADHD normally has to have that treatment started by a specialist - usually a psychiatrist - or by a GP who has completed the state's accredited ADHD training and appears on the health department's published list. After treatment has started, an ordinary GP or a nurse practitioner can write the ongoing prescriptions at the same dose under a shared care arrangement, provided the specialist stays involved and reviews an adult at least once every three years. If you already have a diagnosis and treatment from another state, WA does not make you start over: an interstate prescription can be filled at a WA pharmacy, and a WA doctor can take over - bring your records, your specialist's written instructions and the date you were last reviewed, because a WA prescriber has to check the state prescription monitoring system and confirm your history first.

Last checked 2026-08-21. These rules change, sometimes at short notice. We date every page and cite the source we used, so you can check it yourself. Nothing here is advice about your own treatment — your prescriber and your state health department are the authorities on that.

Who can diagnose you

Who is allowed to make the diagnosis here?

Western Australian medicines law does not say who may diagnose ADHD. It says who may prescribe, and it does so only for the Schedule 8 stimulant category. For an adult to be started on a stimulant medicine, the prescriber must meet the Prescribing Code's "Approved Specialist" test: a medical practitioner holding AHPRA specialist registration in a speciality relevant to the diagnosed condition, or another medical practitioner approved by the Department under regulation 128. For ADHD the Code lists neurology, paediatric neurology, paediatrics and child health, and psychiatry; for an adult that is in practice a psychiatrist or a neurologist. The diagnosis must meet ICD-10 or DSM-5 criteria.

Part 3, Table 3 of the Monitored Medicines Prescribing Code (version MP00002.1, approved 5 December 2024) sets out which AHPRA specialities may prescribe for which diagnoses, and footnote 22 requires ICD-10 or DSM-5 diagnostic criteria to be met. The Code attaches no patient-age limit to any speciality in Table 3; the practical limit is a practitioner's own scope of practice. Separately, WA is training GPs under the ADHD GP Program to assess, diagnose and start treatment for patients aged 10 and older, and WA Health publishes a named list of GPs who have completed training and accreditation, with their practice and suburb. Some entries on that list carry self-declared restrictions - two to children and adolescents only, one to patients aged 10 to 25 only, and one limited to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - so an adult cannot assume every listed GP will see them, and the list changes without notice. HealthyWA states that appropriately trained GPs "may be able to diagnose, treat and prescribe medication for ADHD in both children and adults" (last reviewed 13 August 2026). WA Health's own program page still describes the same thing in the future tense ("will be able to assess and diagnose") while publishing the accredited list, so the department's wording is not internally consistent. Complex presentations and significant co-occurring conditions continue to be referred to a specialist. Psychologists and other non-medical practitioners cannot prescribe; we could not identify any WA provision allowing a non-medical practitioner's assessment to authorise treatment.

Who can start treatment

Who can start you on medicine, and what approval do they need?

Treatment with a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine may only be started by an Approved Specialist, or by a medical practitioner the Department has approved under regulation 128. The Code states that medical practitioners who are not an Approved Specialist, and nurse practitioners, are not permitted to initiate a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine. This restriction is confined to the Schedule 8 stimulant category - a closed list of three substances defined by regulation 114 and repeated in Code section 3.2. ADHD medicines outside that category are not caught by it.

Regulation 126(1) of the Medicines and Poisons Regulations 2016 (WA) authorises a medical practitioner to prescribe or supply a stimulant only if they are a "clinic prescriber" or a "stimulant prescriber", and the prescribing complies with the prescribing code. A "stimulant clinic" can only be a public health service facility approved by the CEO under regulation 127(2), so a private clinic cannot hold that status. A "stimulant prescriber" is a medical practitioner, or a person within a class of medical practitioners, designated in writing by the CEO under regulation 128; regulation 128(3) requires any class designation to be published on the Department's website. Where all four sets of criteria in Code section 3.5 - prescriber, patient, product and review - are met, no authorisation from the CEO is needed. Where any criterion is not met, written authorisation from the CEO must be obtained before prescribing. The listed triggers include a history of psychosis (including stimulant-induced psychosis) or bipolar disorder; a history of substance abuse, diversion or misuse of drugs of addiction or Schedule 9 poisons in the previous five years; a record as a Drug Dependent Person or Oversupplied Person; current participation in the community opioid pharmacotherapy program; a dose above the Code's maximum daily limits; and a lapsed specialist review interval. The application must be made by an Approved Specialist on the approved form, and the CEO may refer it to the Stimulant Assessment Panel for clinical advice. An authorisation is specific to the medicine, form and maximum dose approved; treatment cannot be varied without a fresh application; a new authorisation cancels all prior ones and the previously authorised prescriber is notified; and while an authorisation is in place, other prescribers may not prescribe. Related duties: under regulation 22A a health professional must register with ScriptCheckWA before prescribing, dispensing or supplying a monitored medicine, and use of ScriptCheckWA is "strongly recommended" before prescribing generally, with a hard requirement to validate prescribing history and previous supply for a new or unknown patient. A urine drug screen to AS/NZS 4308 "should be undertaken" by patients aged 16 and over before commencing treatment as a risk mitigation tool - it is not one of the section 3.5 criteria. Code section 3.7 sets out the clinical reasons a prescriber must notify the CEO after ceasing treatment; regulation 130 imposes a separate statutory duty with a different trigger, applying where a practitioner stops stimulant treatment and considers an authorisation would be required to continue it. On medicines outside the stimulant category: Part 3 of the Code and Division 4 of the Regulations do not reach them. Where an ADHD medicine is a Schedule 4 Monitored Medicine, Part 8 of the Code applies instead, and Part 8 states expressly that authorisation from the CEO is not required and contains no specialist-initiation rule.

Who can continue it

Once you are stable, who can keep prescribing?

Once an Approved Specialist has started an adult on a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine, a medical practitioner (including a GP) or a nurse practitioner may write the continuing prescriptions without authorisation from the CEO, but only where every condition of the Code's Shared Care Model is satisfied. It is a conditional permission, not an open one.

Under Code s3.5.1(ii) all of the following must hold: the medicine was initiated by an Approved Specialist for an approved diagnosis; the patient is under ongoing treatment; the prescribing, including medicine name, formulation and dose, is consistent with the Approved Specialist's written instructions or the latest prescription recorded on ScriptCheckWA; the practitioner has reviewed the patient and is satisfied it is safe to prescribe; ScriptCheckWA displays no authorisation for that patient; and the patient, product and review criteria in ss3.5.2 to 3.5.4 are all met. Such a practitioner may not initiate, may not alter the dose without the Approved Specialist's written authority, may not alter the medicine type or formulation, and may not prescribe at all where an authorisation is displayed. The Approved Specialist may withdraw from the arrangement by written notice. Review cadence is a condition, not a guideline: a patient aged 18 or over with none of the listed comorbidities must have been reviewed by an Approved Specialist within the last 3 years, and a patient under 18, or of any age with a listed comorbidity, must be reviewed annually. Outside those intervals, authorisation from the CEO is required. Regulation 126(2) carries an additional condition the Code does not spell out: continuation is available only where no notification under regulation 130(1A) has been made about that patient's treatment. Having a single prescriber is an expectation rather than a prohibition - the Code says that "where possible, prescribing should be limited to a single prescriber", and WA Health says it is "expected" there will be only one; the hard bar on other prescribers applies where a CEO authorisation is in force. A separate provision allows continuation for up to 3 months for a patient in hospital or in custody: Code s3.8 extends this to a medical or nurse practitioner, while reg 126(3) covers medical practitioners only.

Telehealth

Can this happen by video, and does the practitioner have to be here?

Western Australian medicines law contains no in-person requirement for ADHD assessment or for prescribing a stimulant medicine. We searched the full consolidated Medicines and Poisons Regulations 2016 and the full Monitored Medicines Prescribing Code for "telehealth", "in person", "face to face", "physical examination" and "video": the word telehealth appears zero times in the Regulations and exactly once in the Code, in its version history against a December 2023 amendment to Part 4, which deals with medicinal cannabis products, not stimulants. What governs the mode of consultation is national professional regulation, not WA drug law.

The Medical Board of Australia's telehealth guidelines (page reviewed 1 September 2023) state that telehealth "is not appropriate for all medical consultations and should not be considered as a routine substitute for in-person consultations"; that when practical, video consultations are preferable to telephone consultations; that prescribing or providing healthcare "without a real-time direct consultation, whether in-person, via video or telephone, is not good practice and is not supported by the Board", which expressly includes asynchronous requests for medication by text, email, live chat or online based on a completed health questionnaire where the practitioner has never spoken with the patient; and that practitioners must comply with jurisdictional legislative requirements when prescribing, including real-time prescription monitoring, "in the jurisdictions of both the prescriber and patient". In WA that means registration with ScriptCheckWA under reg 22A, and, for a new or unknown patient, a requirement to validate prescribing history and previous supply in ScriptCheckWA, a recommendation to record and where possible verify identity against official photo identification, and a recommendation that only limited supplies (a maximum of about 2 days) be prescribed until that information is obtained. The Code's urine drug screen provision is a "should", framed as a risk mitigation tool, and is not one of the criteria that make the no-authorisation pathway available; it should not be presented as a rule that forces an in-person attendance.

If you move here

What happens to a diagnosis and treatment from another state?

Western Australia does not re-diagnose you and does not re-issue or re-approve an interstate diagnosis. There is no patient registration, transfer permit or notification step - the requirement for prescribers to notify the Department on commencing or changing a patient's treatment was removed on 12 December 2024. Valid Schedule 4 and Schedule 8 prescriptions issued by interstate prescribers may be dispensed in WA, with opioid substitution therapy the stated exception. What determines whether a WA prescriber can simply carry on is whether the treatment fits the Code's shared-care conditions.

WA Health states that interstate prescriptions for stimulant medicines can be dispensed at any WA pharmacy and that interstate prescribers are required to comply with WA prescribing requirements. For a WA GP or nurse practitioner to keep writing prescriptions, the Code requires that the treatment was initiated by an Approved Specialist for an approved diagnosis, that the patient is under ongoing treatment, that the prescribing matches the specialist's written instructions or the latest ScriptCheckWA entry in medicine, formulation and dose, that the practitioner has reviewed the patient, and that ScriptCheckWA displays no authorisation. Because "Approved Specialist" is defined by AHPRA specialist registration, which is national rather than WA-specific, treatment started by a specialist in another state appears on the face of the Code to satisfy that limb - but WA Health has published nothing confirming this for interstate arrivals, so it is not settled. The review clock applies from the outset: an adult aged 18 or over with none of the listed comorbidities must have been reviewed by an Approved Specialist within the last 3 years, so someone whose last specialist review is older than that will need a review, or their prescriber will need authorisation from the CEO. The Code also treats an arriving patient as a "new or unknown patient": the prescriber must validate prescribing history and previous supply in ScriptCheckWA, should record and where possible verify identity against official photo identification, and where that cannot be done, only limited supplies should be prescribed - the Code recommends a maximum of about 2 days, or to the next business day over holiday periods - until the information is obtained. Anyone who does not meet the criteria can still be treated, but their prescriber must obtain written authorisation from the CEO first, and only an Approved Specialist can lodge that application. There is no published WA transfer pathway; this account is assembled from the Code's shared-care, review and new-patient provisions plus the interstate dispensing rules.

What we could not confirm

We went looking for these and could not find a primary source. We would rather show you the gap than fill it with something that sounds right. Take these to your prescriber or the department directly.

  • How many GPs are on WA Health's accredited list, and therefore how many are reachable by an adult. We counted the published table on 21 August 2026 and got 36; the two reviewers who counted it on the same date got 37 and 38. The page is edited without notice, so any headcount is unreliable within days. We are deliberately publishing no number - check the WA Health list itself.
  • The legal instrument that authorises accredited GPs to initiate. Regulation 128 lets the CEO designate an individual medical practitioner, or a class of medical practitioners, as a stimulant prescriber, and reg 128(3) requires any class designation to be published on the Department's website. We searched the ADHD GP Program page, the stimulant medicines pages and the Medicines and Poisons Regulation Branch page and could not find any published designation. So while reg 128 is the only available route in the Code's own definition, we cannot confirm from a published source which form the designation takes or what conditions attach to it.
  • The same gap affects Approved Specialists generally. Regulation 126(1) requires a prescriber to be a clinic prescriber or a stimulant prescriber, and a stimulant prescriber exists only by CEO designation under reg 128. We could not locate a published class designation covering Approved Specialists, even though the December 2024 removal of individual stimulant prescriber authorisations implies one exists.
  • The date the ADHD GP Program began operating. No source states one. WA Health's program page (last reviewed 20 August 2026) uses the future tense throughout - "will be able to assess and diagnose", "will be able to prescribe", "GP stimulant prescribing will commence with an authorised patient load of 50 patients" - while simultaneously publishing a list of GPs who have completed training and accreditation. The RACGP said in June 2025 that the first cohort would practise independently "from early 2026". The program is evidently operating; we cannot date its commencement.
  • Whether the Code's requirement for review "by an Approved Specialist" applies to an adult whose treatment was started by an accredited program GP rather than by a specialist, and if so who satisfies it. Not addressed in any published material.
  • Whether an accredited program GP counts as an "Approved Specialist" for the purpose of Code s3.6.1, which requires an Approved Specialist to make any patient-specific application to the CEO. If a program GP has a patient who falls outside the criteria, it is not published whether the GP may apply or must refer on.
  • Whether a prescriber located outside WA may lawfully start treatment for a WA patient. Part 3 of the Code imposes no WA-location requirement, and the Code states one expressly where it wants one - Part 7 says opioid pharmacotherapy prescribers "must ordinarily be practising in WA". But that is our reading of the Code's silence, not a statement by WA Health, and it does not resolve the reg 126(1) designation question above.
  • Whether interstate prescribers can register for or access ScriptCheckWA. WA Health says interstate prescribers must comply with WA prescribing requirements but does not explain the mechanism.
  • Whether ScriptCheckWA displays medicines dispensed in other states and territories. The WA Health ScriptCheckWA page does not address interstate or national data. This matters for someone moving to WA, because shared-care continuation can rest on "the latest prescription on ScriptCheckWA".
  • Which specific ADHD medicines fall inside and outside the Schedule 8 stimulant category, and which of those outside it are Schedule 4 Monitored Medicines under Schedule 6 of the Regulations. We can confirm the stimulant category is a closed list of three substances, but we do not name medicines here and did not verify the Schedule 6 list. A person should ask their prescriber which category applies to them.
  • How PBS subsidy applies to an adult in WA. Subsidy and authority requirements differ between individual ADHD medicines, including by the age at which the diagnosis was made. We are not linking or summarising the source, because it names a specific medicine. Ask your prescriber or check with Services Australia.
  • Any WA-specific published waiting time for adult ADHD assessment, public or private. The figures circulating online come from private clinic marketing pages, not from WA Health or any published dataset. WA does not appear to publish adult ADHD outpatient waiting times, and the Stimulant Regulatory Scheme's annual reports ceased after 2020.
  • The composition, meeting frequency and turnaround time of the Stimulant Assessment Panel. This matters for adults with a listed comorbidity, whose treatment cannot start until authorisation is granted.
  • A widely repeated claim in commercial summaries that a WA Government Gazette notice (cited as 2025-go3319) took effect on 1 February 2026 and extended initiation authority to vocationally registered GPs generally. It appears on no WA Health page, and the Code published today is still the December 2024 version with no such amendment. Treat as unverified.
  • Whether the urine drug screen the Code says "should" be undertaken before commencing treatment is applied in practice as a firm precondition, and who bears the cost.

What changed recently

  1. 2024-12-05

    Monitored Medicines Prescribing Code version MP00002.1 approved by the Director General, replacing the former Schedule 8 medicines prescribing code. The stated reason for this version was "clarification of stimulant prescribers". This is still the version published today.

    WA Department of Health — Monitored Medicines Prescribing Code (MP00002.1), document control table

  2. 2024-12-12

    The Code and the amended Medicines and Poisons Regulations 2016 took effect. For stimulants this removed the requirement for individual Approved Specialists to obtain authorisation as a Stimulant Prescriber and to notify the Department when starting or changing a patient's treatment; set out continuing prescribing by other medical practitioners and nurse practitioners under a shared care model without CEO authorisation; and made valid interstate Schedule 4 and Schedule 8 prescriptions dispensable in WA, except for opioid substitution therapy.

    WA Department of Health — Medicines and Poisons Regulation - Summary of changes

  3. 2025-06-12

    Registration with ScriptCheckWA, the state's real-time prescription monitoring system, became mandatory for prescribers and dispensers under reg 22A.

    WA Department of Health — Medicines and Poisons Regulation - Summary of changes

  4. 2025-06-25

    The ADHD GP Program was announced, with $1.3 million in the 2025-26 State Budget. The training program was described as initially open to 65 GPs in WA from a mix of rural and metro locations, with the first cohort expected to diagnose and treat ADHD independently from early 2026 after online modules and about six months of close collaboration with specialist paediatricians and psychiatrists.

    Royal Australian College of General Practitioners — WA Government releases details for GP ADHD diagnosis and treatment

  5. 2025-10-28

    The WA Government confirmed 17 GPs had begun the program that week, that it would run in three sequential cohorts "with a total of 65 GPs expected to complete the program by August 2026", and that the first group included GPs "working in rural, remote and outer metropolitan communities, in areas of low socio-economic advantage and from the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services". More than 400 GPs had expressed interest. Once trained, participating GPs would be able to diagnose and treat ADHD and be authorised to initiate stimulant medicines for patients aged 10 and older.

    Government of Western Australia — GP training to help more Western Australians access care for ADHD

  6. 2026-08-13

    HealthyWA's ADHD page updated to state that appropriately trained GPs may be able to diagnose, treat and prescribe medication for ADHD in both children and adults.

    HealthyWA (WA Department of Health) — Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

  7. 2026-08-20

    WA Health's ADHD GP Program page last reviewed. It publishes the named list of GPs who have completed training and accreditation, with practice and suburb and some self-declared patient restrictions, and states that "GP stimulant prescribing will commence with an authorised patient load of 50 patients for whom the GP is the primary prescriber".

    WA Department of Health — ADHD diagnosis and treatment through General Practitioners (GPs)

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