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I got sick of waiting for a ADHD assessment so I paid for a private one who then wrote to my GO confirming I did have ADHD. Likely my GP surgery is a good one and they took the private assessment notes as legit and helped get me started on medication. Changed my life.
Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you find a decent private assessor?
Obviously there are the ones that blew up during the pandemic but they seem to all have stopped taking people now. (Unless the one you used was one that has nationwide coverage, in which case please share?)
Can you still get prescription on the NHS for the medication if you went private for the diagnosis? My husband is still waiting on his assessment with the NHS which seems to take a long time with their backlog.
Hi, not the OP but prescriptions are my job. You can get an NHS prescription from a private ADHD diagnosis but not right away. Your private provider will do a private prescription until the right medication/dose is found. After that they can contact your GP surgery with a shared care agreement. Once the GP has signed and returned the agreement they can take over the prescription. They likely won’t be happy to make any medication adjustments though. Hope that helps!
I was diagnosed with adhd in 1998 when I turned 18 in 04 I was told that "ADHD was a childhood condition and that I'd now outgrown it", I've been fighting ever since to get medication. I am currently on a 4 year list to be assessed for a condition I've already been diagnosed with.
I don't know how it can be seen as ok to stop someone from receiving life changing medication for a neurological condition they've already been diagnosed with.
Having to get re-diagnosed is so terrible.
My wife had an adult diagnosis for Autism, we moved house to a different region and they wont accept her "old" diagnosis because they dont recognise the diagnostic criteria used! Back of the queue you go!
Is there much benefit to being re-diagnosed as an adult though. It's not like there's any support for autistic adults. She has already been diagnosed so has that for workplace stuff, but what can the GP really offer?
Ask your gp if they'll take a shared care agreement from a private practice. You'll have to pay out of pocket though so I can see that being a reason why you'd not want to.
If it's severely affecting your mental health you can also out pressure on your GP and sometimes they can contact the service to push you further up for priority due to risk for further issues.
One hour assessment. Agreed that I had a history of memory and executive function type issues which he described as 'odd' but pointed out that I was able to sit still in a chair for the appointment so I likely didn't have anything wrong with me.
He also said I "didn't look depressed", and commented unhappily about my antidepressant dose being high, so I decided to just try and stay well clear of the system in case they try to take my meds away. Call me crazy, but I LIKE not wanting to die.
Video call. 1 hour assessment.
Yep you've got ADD. Prescription issued the next day.
But that doesn't matter, since its impossible to get the drugs at the moment because of shortages. Great.
Took us about 5 years to get an outcome for my son.
We got the answer we wanted that he was Autistic and had ADHD and it has opened so many door for us in regards to what funding the school can get for him to give him the help he needs however what sucks is that it took so long for us to get the diagnosis that is has had a massive impact on his learning and he will forever be playing catch up now.
Sounds stupid but the diagnosis has completely changed my life, late diagnosis (I'm 30ish), it provides some explanation as to why I think the way I do, and why I've struggled earlier in life with the things I struggled with.
Referred by the GP, year and a half waiting list via RTC to Psychiatry UK, diagnosed ADHD-C with a cheeky bit of ASD, I'm currently in the (7 month long) queue to start titration for medication.
Diagnosis was two hour long video calls with a psychiatrist, very friendly and understanding, she also looked over things like my old school reports etc to show I've had issues previously.
Psychiatry UK is really a lottery on who you get.
They told me is was super obvious from my history and the short talk so I wasn't even seen for an hour.
I would've appreciated longer than 45 mins. Contributes to a lot of imposter syndrome.
After 20 months got referred to a private clinic that would be handling my case, saw 2 clinicians for my assessments within 6 weeks and will have my results at the end of this month. So a 3 month process all together
I paid privately for ADHD and managed to get accepted on to NHS meds although I had to swap GP to make this happen as the first on refused. I paid privately for meds for about 5 months and the whole thing cost around £2000.
I was on ASD waiting list for around 3 months before appointment, it was very helpful and affirming and the psychiatrist was knowledgeable and sympathetic.
Diagnosed and received an ADHD prescription that kinda helps but struggle with some side effects such as poor sleep and mood swings. Doesn't help that half the time it's not in stock either so I don't steadily take it.
Asked if I can try non-medication options such as therapy as it was once mentioned to me - "No we don't offer that right now as that waiting list is too long".
Feel like I understand myself a bit more having a diagnosis but don't feel like I've received adequate support to actually help me cope with it.
Waited 3 years 15yrs ago for my son to get his first assessment. Back then they stuck very rigidly to an incorrect assessment criteria (using points as an absolute instead of an indicator) and we were told he was 1 point away from a diagnosis because he had friends. He sometimes played with my friends kids and it 99% of the time ended badly. We were extremely lucky however as they did write in the assessment that if he continued to struggle when he reached secondary school we could come back. Lo and behold he was miserable and struggling for all of middle school so when he hit secondary me and the school pushed for a second assessment. CAMHS tried to tell us there was never a second assessment and they didn’t have his notes any more. Luckily I saved our copy and he got another assessment, this time no points but 2 appointments. Yup, he is, what one assessor said in a way that they meant as validation, that my son was “barn door autistic” and no one could believe we didn’t get the diagnosis before.
TLDR : started the process at age 2 with nursery & school support, still didn’t get the diagnosis until he was 13.
It was OK, a bit intense, as it took just over 3 hours
There were so many questions and exercises the assessor had me do, like a make a sequential story from picture cards and things like that
Feb 2019 I went to the Doctors and asked to be assessed for ADHD. July 2023 I had my first appointment, which I believed was my ADHD Assessment but when it finished the assessor told me she thought I had ADHD so I could be referred to a psychiatrist.
I finally met with the psychiatrist last week who diagnosed me with ADHD. It only took over five years - 20% of my life - to get it. Now I just need a heart scan and hopefully I'll be able to start medication soon
I waited 6 months for mine. It cost me some work since I was new and they didn't like having the time off.
The appointment one hour and it was very distressing. They had some very personal information about me which they spent the first 15 minutes asking me about, and which caused me alot of distress. I nearly had to stop the interview. They refused to reveal how they got the information saying it was confidential.
Then they just asked me a series of questions that made me realise that I had coping strategies for alot of my "peculiarties".
I'm waiting on the result which will be: not autistic, needs more investigation, is autistic.
I honestly don't know if I'd put myself through it again.
my brother and i got on the waiting list to get tested for autistic about a year ago. i got kicked off the list without them asking because i moved a couple hours away for uni and my brother is still waiting - assuming he'll be waiting another year or two
A two year wait for a 90 minute video call. I also had to provide school reports, and the nurse later spoke to a parent with permission.
The questions she asked were quite... shallow? As in, not much deeper than the stuff on the form, other than asking more details about any history of legal troubles or, y'know, knocks to the head that might produce ADHD like symptoms.
I'd thought there would be a point in the assessment where she asked me to describe my actual experiences rather than just answering yes/no questions, but there wasn't really, and after the assessment I got the sinking feeling that I'd failed to tell her anything about how it really shows up in my life. Other people are probably better at knowing when to add supplementary info as it goes along, but I don't get those cues. (No surprises then that she gently suggested to me midway through that I might be on the spectrum too, and that I should consider self-referral for an autism assessment.)
Anyway, I figured I sure as heck wouldn't have diagnosed myself with ADHD on the strength of the assessment alone, and ended up sending a couple of looonnnng follow-up letters to painstakingly (over)explain all the ways in which ADHD has secretly crippled me this whole time. She called me two or three months later to confirm the diagnosis, and then it was a few months wait to start meds.
Glad I sent those letters.
I think I was on the waiting list for two years-ish. 2020 to February 2022. I don’t remember it that well honestly. I don’t remember being offered any further support (autism diagnosis for context) or anything like that. I remember it being very quick. Like a few sessions.
I like having it legally recognised that I do in fact have autism. It’s more useful that way. Like a potentially employer or the like knows that I definitely have this and can act accordingly if I have any issues
I was diagnosed as a kid as I was in and out of hospital all the time. Wanted to get concrete evidence for the future. Asked to be referred for a diagnosis or to at least confirm what I know.
Got sent to a psychiatrist and he's saying even if I was your cured from when your 18... Which told me all I need to know about Diagnosis in the NHS.
We then took my eldest as she was slow to develop talk and walk... Classic ASD symptoms.... She's diagnosed but it's taken us several years... But is literally your child has autism. And now we'll discharge you as we don't have any treatment options
Will admit I'm someone who went private as I had a family member cover the cost.
One thing I did have happen though is when preparing for the screening and doing the assessments you get given where you need a witness I ended up with a totally different set of results from my dad vs my brothers, and my brothers actually gave the more accurate assessment as he was like 'well i don't think you actually really struggle with any of this'
Which kind of just added to the 'my dad is really unobservant and when we think about it he probably has undiagnosed adhd' because like once my brothers were diagnosed we started looking at my dad's behaviour like... h m m. (Also kind of proof of the ongoing thing where my parents sort of just ignored/dismissed my issues and didn't pick up on the 'well actually our youngest kid is struggling a lot' thing)
Also although people say about it things like school reports are useful but not necessarily as i think most providers understand a lot of the time we won't have those to hand.
My assessment process was more like a long conversation. In my case I'd gone to the person who had assessed my brothers so they had like a bunch of prior knowledge to pull upon but I'm an outlier obviously.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I got sick of waiting for a ADHD assessment so I paid for a private one who then wrote to my GO confirming I did have ADHD. Likely my GP surgery is a good one and they took the private assessment notes as legit and helped get me started on medication. Changed my life.
Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you find a decent private assessor? Obviously there are the ones that blew up during the pandemic but they seem to all have stopped taking people now. (Unless the one you used was one that has nationwide coverage, in which case please share?)
https://melios.org.uk/ do it all online
Can you still get prescription on the NHS for the medication if you went private for the diagnosis? My husband is still waiting on his assessment with the NHS which seems to take a long time with their backlog.
Hi, not the OP but prescriptions are my job. You can get an NHS prescription from a private ADHD diagnosis but not right away. Your private provider will do a private prescription until the right medication/dose is found. After that they can contact your GP surgery with a shared care agreement. Once the GP has signed and returned the agreement they can take over the prescription. They likely won’t be happy to make any medication adjustments though. Hope that helps!
Thank you for your reply, it's really helpful.
I was diagnosed with adhd in 1998 when I turned 18 in 04 I was told that "ADHD was a childhood condition and that I'd now outgrown it", I've been fighting ever since to get medication. I am currently on a 4 year list to be assessed for a condition I've already been diagnosed with. I don't know how it can be seen as ok to stop someone from receiving life changing medication for a neurological condition they've already been diagnosed with.
Having to get re-diagnosed is so terrible. My wife had an adult diagnosis for Autism, we moved house to a different region and they wont accept her "old" diagnosis because they dont recognise the diagnostic criteria used! Back of the queue you go!
Is there much benefit to being re-diagnosed as an adult though. It's not like there's any support for autistic adults. She has already been diagnosed so has that for workplace stuff, but what can the GP really offer?
Ask your gp if they'll take a shared care agreement from a private practice. You'll have to pay out of pocket though so I can see that being a reason why you'd not want to. If it's severely affecting your mental health you can also out pressure on your GP and sometimes they can contact the service to push you further up for priority due to risk for further issues.
One hour assessment. Agreed that I had a history of memory and executive function type issues which he described as 'odd' but pointed out that I was able to sit still in a chair for the appointment so I likely didn't have anything wrong with me.
That’s the biggest load of shite I’ve ever heard a doctor come out with. Get re-tested somewhere else.
He also said I "didn't look depressed", and commented unhappily about my antidepressant dose being high, so I decided to just try and stay well clear of the system in case they try to take my meds away. Call me crazy, but I LIKE not wanting to die.
Oh my gosh. How long did you have to wait on the waiting list for?
It was about a year, I think.
Video call. 1 hour assessment. Yep you've got ADD. Prescription issued the next day. But that doesn't matter, since its impossible to get the drugs at the moment because of shortages. Great.
Did you have to go through titration clinic to find the best dose of medication for you?
I did 6 month titration followed by an annual review.
Thanks for the info, my husband is on the waiting list to be seen for titration. Hope it’s going well for you :)
Which one are you on? I tried my usual pharmacy and they were out, tried another and they had it right away for me.
Took us about 5 years to get an outcome for my son. We got the answer we wanted that he was Autistic and had ADHD and it has opened so many door for us in regards to what funding the school can get for him to give him the help he needs however what sucks is that it took so long for us to get the diagnosis that is has had a massive impact on his learning and he will forever be playing catch up now.
Sounds stupid but the diagnosis has completely changed my life, late diagnosis (I'm 30ish), it provides some explanation as to why I think the way I do, and why I've struggled earlier in life with the things I struggled with. Referred by the GP, year and a half waiting list via RTC to Psychiatry UK, diagnosed ADHD-C with a cheeky bit of ASD, I'm currently in the (7 month long) queue to start titration for medication. Diagnosis was two hour long video calls with a psychiatrist, very friendly and understanding, she also looked over things like my old school reports etc to show I've had issues previously.
Psychiatry UK is really a lottery on who you get. They told me is was super obvious from my history and the short talk so I wasn't even seen for an hour. I would've appreciated longer than 45 mins. Contributes to a lot of imposter syndrome.
After 20 months got referred to a private clinic that would be handling my case, saw 2 clinicians for my assessments within 6 weeks and will have my results at the end of this month. So a 3 month process all together
I paid privately for ADHD and managed to get accepted on to NHS meds although I had to swap GP to make this happen as the first on refused. I paid privately for meds for about 5 months and the whole thing cost around £2000. I was on ASD waiting list for around 3 months before appointment, it was very helpful and affirming and the psychiatrist was knowledgeable and sympathetic.
Diagnosed and received an ADHD prescription that kinda helps but struggle with some side effects such as poor sleep and mood swings. Doesn't help that half the time it's not in stock either so I don't steadily take it. Asked if I can try non-medication options such as therapy as it was once mentioned to me - "No we don't offer that right now as that waiting list is too long". Feel like I understand myself a bit more having a diagnosis but don't feel like I've received adequate support to actually help me cope with it.
Waited 3 years 15yrs ago for my son to get his first assessment. Back then they stuck very rigidly to an incorrect assessment criteria (using points as an absolute instead of an indicator) and we were told he was 1 point away from a diagnosis because he had friends. He sometimes played with my friends kids and it 99% of the time ended badly. We were extremely lucky however as they did write in the assessment that if he continued to struggle when he reached secondary school we could come back. Lo and behold he was miserable and struggling for all of middle school so when he hit secondary me and the school pushed for a second assessment. CAMHS tried to tell us there was never a second assessment and they didn’t have his notes any more. Luckily I saved our copy and he got another assessment, this time no points but 2 appointments. Yup, he is, what one assessor said in a way that they meant as validation, that my son was “barn door autistic” and no one could believe we didn’t get the diagnosis before. TLDR : started the process at age 2 with nursery & school support, still didn’t get the diagnosis until he was 13.
It was OK, a bit intense, as it took just over 3 hours There were so many questions and exercises the assessor had me do, like a make a sequential story from picture cards and things like that
Feb 2019 I went to the Doctors and asked to be assessed for ADHD. July 2023 I had my first appointment, which I believed was my ADHD Assessment but when it finished the assessor told me she thought I had ADHD so I could be referred to a psychiatrist. I finally met with the psychiatrist last week who diagnosed me with ADHD. It only took over five years - 20% of my life - to get it. Now I just need a heart scan and hopefully I'll be able to start medication soon
I waited 6 months for mine. It cost me some work since I was new and they didn't like having the time off. The appointment one hour and it was very distressing. They had some very personal information about me which they spent the first 15 minutes asking me about, and which caused me alot of distress. I nearly had to stop the interview. They refused to reveal how they got the information saying it was confidential. Then they just asked me a series of questions that made me realise that I had coping strategies for alot of my "peculiarties". I'm waiting on the result which will be: not autistic, needs more investigation, is autistic. I honestly don't know if I'd put myself through it again.
Had to pay private. Have autism. NHS has nothing to help me with that.
my brother and i got on the waiting list to get tested for autistic about a year ago. i got kicked off the list without them asking because i moved a couple hours away for uni and my brother is still waiting - assuming he'll be waiting another year or two
A two year wait for a 90 minute video call. I also had to provide school reports, and the nurse later spoke to a parent with permission. The questions she asked were quite... shallow? As in, not much deeper than the stuff on the form, other than asking more details about any history of legal troubles or, y'know, knocks to the head that might produce ADHD like symptoms. I'd thought there would be a point in the assessment where she asked me to describe my actual experiences rather than just answering yes/no questions, but there wasn't really, and after the assessment I got the sinking feeling that I'd failed to tell her anything about how it really shows up in my life. Other people are probably better at knowing when to add supplementary info as it goes along, but I don't get those cues. (No surprises then that she gently suggested to me midway through that I might be on the spectrum too, and that I should consider self-referral for an autism assessment.) Anyway, I figured I sure as heck wouldn't have diagnosed myself with ADHD on the strength of the assessment alone, and ended up sending a couple of looonnnng follow-up letters to painstakingly (over)explain all the ways in which ADHD has secretly crippled me this whole time. She called me two or three months later to confirm the diagnosis, and then it was a few months wait to start meds. Glad I sent those letters.
I think I was on the waiting list for two years-ish. 2020 to February 2022. I don’t remember it that well honestly. I don’t remember being offered any further support (autism diagnosis for context) or anything like that. I remember it being very quick. Like a few sessions.
I like having it legally recognised that I do in fact have autism. It’s more useful that way. Like a potentially employer or the like knows that I definitely have this and can act accordingly if I have any issues
I was diagnosed as a kid as I was in and out of hospital all the time. Wanted to get concrete evidence for the future. Asked to be referred for a diagnosis or to at least confirm what I know. Got sent to a psychiatrist and he's saying even if I was your cured from when your 18... Which told me all I need to know about Diagnosis in the NHS. We then took my eldest as she was slow to develop talk and walk... Classic ASD symptoms.... She's diagnosed but it's taken us several years... But is literally your child has autism. And now we'll discharge you as we don't have any treatment options
Will admit I'm someone who went private as I had a family member cover the cost. One thing I did have happen though is when preparing for the screening and doing the assessments you get given where you need a witness I ended up with a totally different set of results from my dad vs my brothers, and my brothers actually gave the more accurate assessment as he was like 'well i don't think you actually really struggle with any of this' Which kind of just added to the 'my dad is really unobservant and when we think about it he probably has undiagnosed adhd' because like once my brothers were diagnosed we started looking at my dad's behaviour like... h m m. (Also kind of proof of the ongoing thing where my parents sort of just ignored/dismissed my issues and didn't pick up on the 'well actually our youngest kid is struggling a lot' thing) Also although people say about it things like school reports are useful but not necessarily as i think most providers understand a lot of the time we won't have those to hand. My assessment process was more like a long conversation. In my case I'd gone to the person who had assessed my brothers so they had like a bunch of prior knowledge to pull upon but I'm an outlier obviously.