Adult ADHD assessment

[Umbalala]

I’ve been certain I have ADHD for years. My cousin has it, I’m pretty sure my father does and my 6 year old has just been diagnosed with it.

I’ve decided to get an assessment for myself as I think medication may help with my symptoms. I don’t really want to wait two years for an NHS appointment.

Would I be unreasonable to spend £1200 on a diagnosis? This is the quote I’ve had from a very experienced psychiatrist near me. Is this the going rate? Would it be silly to go with a cheap online company?

I was referred to the NHS waiting list about six months ago and then last month the local mental health team told me definitively that they had lost my referral and I wasn't even on the list.

I was at my wit's end so I paid £360 for an assessment with Psychiatry-UK. Once you add in follow-ups, titration and prescriptions it is around £1200 all in for the assessment, meds and aftercare, you just don't pay it all as one bill, if that makes sense? You pay for each part of the service as you use it. I was diagnosed with combined presentation ADHD at the end of the session.

One week later, my NHS assessment date arrived in the post and I've been told that my local trust does not accept private diagnosis so I need to be assessed all over again by the NHS unless I want to pay £££££ for ADHD meds on private prescriptions for the rest of my life.

So... in short, you're not being unreasonable if you can afford it. I was all set to pay that amount myself before the NHS finally found my referral, plus I paid £900 for my autism assessment after being badly failed by the local NHS service. Private health care isn't cheap but I'm glad I paid it.

Thanks for your reply - that’s terrible but doesn’t surprise me! Surely if a qualified psychiatrist (who likely works for the NHS too) diagnoses you then it should be enough?

I will check with my doctor whether it’s the same. I’m in Avon/Somerset/BANES

Unless you're paying for a prescription also, there's no point in getting a private ADHD diagnosis - the NHS won't accept it for prescribing purposes, regardless of where the diagnosis came from.

So if you can afford to keep paying for the meds - YANBU.

I also paid via psychiatry uk.

Can’t find a medication that works. I can’t take stimulants as I have high blood pressure and the drugs I can take just send me to sleep.

In England you can actually access assessments through Psychiatry-UK on the NHS, so it's particularly galling that they won't then accept their diagnosis!

My GP told me the Glasgow mental health team is actually being sued over it and there are numerous complaints being filed about it. The Psychiatry-UK website mentions going on to "shared care", aka free prescriptions through your local NHS service, once private titration is complete but it turns out that's not possible everywhere in the UK.

@jerometheturnipking

Unless you're paying for a prescription also, there's no point in getting a private ADHD diagnosis - the NHS won't accept it for prescribing purposes, regardless of where the diagnosis came from.

So if you can afford to keep paying for the meds - YANBU.

That fact is really not well advertised. As I mentioned above, I was told explicitly that I would get my meds all balanced and sorted privately and then I'd go onto shared care with my local NHS service.

I have friends elsewhere in the UK and this has been the case for them, so it must be a postcode lottery. I didn't know anything about it until I phoned my GP to let her know I was going private due to the local mental health team fucking up my referral.

I’m in NI and have put off speaking to my GP about assessment for ages due to various reasons. I have now decided to speak to her. However my friend has also just spoken with their GP and she was told they are no longer referring for ADHD so she will have to go private if she wants an assessment. does anyone else know if this is right? Can they really just have a blanket refusal policy?

Is this true for children's diagnosis too? My 13 year old has started the process of referral for neurodiversr and I'm wondering about private but obviously if it will just get rejected by the nHS then it'll be more of a hindrance than help.

It's shocking, isn't it amusedbush. I spoke to a GP friend when I was at the "suspicion" stage and she told me that while she agreed I should be diagnosed, our NHS trust both wasn't referring adults at that time (still isn't, thanks pandemic) and wouldn't accept a private diagnosis.

I continue to deal with it through excessive exercise and caffeine consumption - things that I've always needed to "stay sane", and I wonder what the benefit to taking the meds would be if I've already had 20+ years of finding my own ways to feel settled and focused.

This doesn’t sound good guys!!! Awful as really it has such a debilitating affect on lives and the lives of those around us. (Excuse me for speaking as though I’ve already had a diagnosis he ear!)

@jerometheturnipking

I wish I had found coping techniques that work for me! I jump from job to job because 1) I get bored quickly and 2) I can't focus on a task long enough to actually be good a job so I'm constantly overwhelmed and firefighting. My house is consistently a shit hole because I can't bring myself to actually tidy it and I'm in real danger of failing my PhD because I haven't done an iota of work toward it since July - I clearly can't be responsible for my own deadlines!

I'm on my knees with executive dysfunction and, even though I now have a diagnosis, the private waiting list for meds is up to six months because of Right to Choose in England. I'm seeing the NHS psych for another assessment in two weeks and she promised me that, if I'm diagnosed through them, she'll get me onto meds within a month. I'm at my wits end.

I'm 99% sure I have it (same as you, thinking dad has it, my son has it).

But I cannot think of one reason why I might seek a diagnoses.

We have precisely fuck all from the diagnoses from my son (can you tell I'm bitter about that?) so I can't imagine it will help much with me.

I guess the only positive would be if you were so bad you felt that medication would be a benefit.

Im not sure I fancy trying that.

Is wish I had coping techniques too. I’m pretty much non functional now. I’m not coping with normal life at all. Not even on a basic level. Can’t get my brain to operate past a certain point.

I use exercise to keep sane too and frequently feel too overwhelmed to function yet my brain won’t relax. My mood swings can be severe and PMT makes it worse.

I can’t stay on task and need lots of lists to remind me what I need to be doing and it what order otherwise I start looking for my keys to go out and end up getting sidetracked and end up online clothes shopping or something and am then very late! (Always bloody late)

I write list after list after list. As soon as I’ve written it I forget about it. So many duplicated lists. I have notebooks full of information all over the house that I never look at and is all now redundant.

I went privately and paid for my meds for ages..eventually got them on shared care after a BIG fight. But I would have found the money if I hadn't as they made such a massive difference to my life.. days with meds - functional, get things done, don't feel anxious and like a total fuckup waste of space . Days with no meds , start loads of jobs, move onto the next one having forgotten I was doing the first one, disappear down rabbit holes on Internet for literally hours and feel so crap and guilt afterwards , feel so overwhelmed by all the things that need doing that I do nothing and everything snowballs out of control .

I use exercise to keep sane too and frequently feel too overwhelmed to function yet my brain won’t relax. My mood swings can be severe and PMT makes it worse.

This. I really identify with this. When I say stay sane, I really just mean that. If I don't exercise my mood swings are worse, and like you PMT makes them worse too. If I don't drink enough coffee I can't focus at work and I feel jittery and I can't control my stims - itching, finger picking, scratching at my skin, rolling my fingers/feet to feel my joints. Crocheting helps, but I can't do that at work!

I'm not sure what meds would do to help that though, given that they're also stimulant based.

I’m really shocked about the whole NHS refusing to prescribe thing. Is it because the meds are so expensive? Surely if it significantly improves someone’s life it’s important?
@jerometheturnipking are you going to try for an assessment?

@3scape

A boy I teach went private as the waiting list was so long. They were told private assessment, balance meds then NHS will take over by the company. Unfortunately not true. NHS refusing to do so and say only if an NHS diagnosis is made. We're in Kent. :(

Well, crap.

But thanks for the information.

Psychiatry UK are now part of right to choose so in many areas your GP will refer you directly to them and they will do the assessment and titration and then pass back to shared care under an NHS agreement.

For me telephone call from the Dr (April 2021) to diagnosis with Psychiatry UK (July 2021) was 3 months. I am still waiting on titration, though.

What medication is prescribed for adults with ADHD, generally speaking? I really think I have ADHD, I'm 39. Will make steps to contact the GP but by the sounds of it will be waiting ages (I'm in Scotland) so may have to go down the private route.

[quote Littlebluebird123]@3scape

A boy I teach went private as the waiting list was so long. They were told private assessment, balance meds then NHS will take over by the company. Unfortunately not true. NHS refusing to do so and say only if an NHS diagnosis is made. We're in Kent. :([/quote]
I'm in East Sussex and was told this would happen.

So I called my GP and checked, he said it's BS, he would happily prescribe if it was a diagnoses from a psychiatrist.

Not that it helped, the psychiatrist advised agains medication because it would exacerbate his tics.

I'm exploring a private diagnosis and then, if I'm actually diagnosed and find medication useful I can get on a list for NHS assessment. I assume that if I have a private diagnosis I'll at least be able to get on an NHS waiting list a bit more easily.

If I don't get a diagnosis or don't find medication helps I'd rather not have had to fight with my NHS too. If I do find medication helpful then I'll be reassured that there's a point to pushing NHS for a diagnosis.