Children referred for autism or ADHD assessments in Southampton today could wait up to eight years to be seen if demand continues to rise faster than capacity, councillors have been warned.
Thousands of children and young people in the city are already facing waits of several years for assessments.
The situation mirrors a national picture of rising demand.
Southampton City Council's director of children's social care, Steph Murray, acknowledged the frustration caused by the delays.
Ms Murray said: "The wait is real and we all feel the pain of those children that are waiting.
"I'm not going to deny that I find that massively frustrating on behalf of children and sometimes I say to my council colleagues can I just pay for somebody to do this assessment and they say 'yes, but then who is going to do the prescribing'.
"You can't just take somebody off the shelf and pay for a part of it and I personally find that really frustrating.
"It's nobody's fault but on behalf of children I find that really frustrating and I'm not alone. I know my council colleagues feel the same way."
A report to the children and families scrutiny panel said there were 1,693 children and young people waiting for an autism assessment, with an average wait of around two years.
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There were 1,004 children and young people waiting for an ADHD assessment, with an average wait of three years and five months.
Additionally, 651 children and young people were waiting to start ADHD medication, with an average wait of one year and 10 months.
Councillors were told modelling suggested that, if referrals continued to rise at a faster rate than assessment capacity, children referred today in Southampton could face waits of up to eight years.
The panel heard the number of children and young people waiting for an ADHD assessment in England rose from 21,000 in 2019 to 270,000 in 2025.
The meeting took place before the independent national review of ADHD, autism and mental health conditions led by Professor Peter Fonagy was published.
Prof Fonagy's report said there was an increasing risk of over-diagnosis for autism and ADHD, however, there were identified weaknesses in the data.
This included the review team having to use estimates as surveys used to assess the true level of autism had not been done for nine years.
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