Needing advice on how to choose doctor for ADHD assessment in the north west

[Dreamqueen]

Posting on here for traffic. My adult son has been assessed at Gp as most likely having ADHD. GP says it's a 3 year waiting list on NHS. I've offered to pay privately for assessment and medication if needed. GP or counsellor can't recommend which company to go to. They said to look online and choose for ourselves. AIBU to think that some help in choosing should be offered?

If anyone has any experience with choosing a company in the Lancashire area or online, I'd be very grateful. I've jsu spent hours trawling though the internet and have ended up even more confused than before i started. DS asked for my help in looking as he is feeling overwhelmed after a GP appointment this afternoon. GP said there is no chance of a shared care package. He said that he'd have to do it all privately and pay for medication if needed and then go through it all agin in 3 years when nhs treatment might become available to him.

We used the ADHD centre in Manchester for my daughter,s assessment when she was 18 (she is 26 now). We had to pay for several private prescriptions until her medications stabilised then we asked if the gp would prescribe via the nhs. We were lucky as this was fine with them - but I understand it might not necessarily be that straight forward now. It helped that she was at university at Keele and she had been told to go for an assessment by her tutor and her GP was on campus.

Also used the ADHD Centre in Manchester, would really recommend them.

Thank you for your replies.

We went with sanctum North West in Wilmslow. GP was happy to take on shared care once DC was settled on meds

Peter Mason Rodney St Liverpool was very good

We also used the ADHD centre in Manchester.

We also used the adhd centre in Manchester. It was OK. Got the diagnosis and meds. It's pricey because you need to keep adjusting meds to get them right and it takes a while. So they did the job but I have nothing else to compare them to.

Can I ask, are people recommending ADHD centre in MCR because they got a diagnosis and meds (and you had no doubt that the patient had ADHD) or because the assessment was really thorough so you feel confident that the diagnosis was completely accurate (as you might if you weren't sure).

Can you ask about right to choose? I was on a five year wait for ADHD assessment and have just reached top that way in 12 weeks.

i was reassured by the assessment and the fact that the prescribed medication helped her enormously. tbh adhd was not in my radar when she was growing up although looking back now with what i know about the condition, it seems obvious.

Thank you to everyone who has replied. I will call the ADHD Centre in Manchester. My son has completed an online forn already with a nhs counsellor and she feels that he is ADHD but because of the system she can't progress him withoutvthe 3 year wait. Luckily I'm in a position to help with the cost of going private until he reaches the top of the waiting list.

Very thorough. Lots of collateral required, even old school reports etc.

My daughter calls this Pay to Win.
She's been waiting 2 years for assessment with NHS.

No-one who ever pays 2/3 grand gets told 'no'

My son is having counselling and CBT and the therapist thinks it's most likely that he is ADHD but can't do anything herself other than put him on a waiting list and watch him struggle.

https://www.adhdfoundation.org.uk/

Based in Liverpool

I wouldn’t bother. The nhs won’t recognise it anyway and these companies will give anyone a diagnosis just to keep making money. My son’s friend has just been “diagnosed” with autism and adhd and she’s no more neurodivergent than I am. It’s a trend, it’ll pass. No point in wasting money for no gain.

AIBU to think that some help in choosing should be offered?

YABU. They shouldn't help you choose because it's akin to recommending a place and their doctors for you. They can't recommend somewhere and people they can't stand by. If anything happens, you'd blame them for recommending the place.

There's also Right to Choose but i believe this is when you're accepted on the waiting list already.

I absolutely knew my ds had adhd. The school had wanted me to have him assessed when he was about 7 but I refused. As he got older it was so obvious. So I suppose I went purely to get him the meds. I'm not sure if they are good if you are not sure. But I think by the time most people get to the point of paying for a diagnosis they have done a lot of research and they are sure.

My job involves proofreading these reports and I disagree with your comment. Many of the patients are assessed as being sub threshold / not meeting diagnostic criteria.

I would ask the doctor who they would recommend. There is a whole range of these services, from someone with zero qualifications on a zoom call, through to a several hour process with a consultant psychiatrist.

DS was diagnosed last year with the consultant psychiatrist route, the guy who he dealt with also works in the NHS.

Your daughter's not very nice then.

Nobody shells out £3k to get a diagnosis of something nobody wants to have in the first place. Young adults are paying privately because they have struggled through childhood and teens and then get to the point they just can't do it any more. Not everyone with ADD or ADHD gets diagnosed as a child. My son was the model student at school - clever and well-behaved, never once did a teacher raise issues with me about his conduct, impulses at school where the environment is more strictly controlled. University has been a different matter and he has crashed and burned after 3 years. Damn right we're going to pay for private diagnosis or meds rather than see him repeatedly fail exams and get chucked off his course.

You could also argue that the people who are paying for private diagnosis for these sorts of conditions are reducing the waiting list for everyone else.

Clearly unfair on people who cannot afford to pay
But can understand why people who can pay do
All very difficult

My daughter is 14 and unwell. She's struggles massively and her rich friends do t but have all jumped on the bandwagon and got private diagnosis whilst she's self harming and unable to go to school whilst on a waiting list 2 years.

Where one of her friends told her she thinks she might have ADHD as she's forgetful?? And 5 weeks later she has a private diagnosis!!

Dont tell me my daughters not nice, she's the sweetest girl in the world she's just upset with the system