Oxbridge + ADHD meds - any experience

[nekoatsume]

DD is starting at Oxford in October, and has ADHD for which she takes meds. She sees a private paediatrician but gets the meds on NHS prescription

The college advice is to sign up with a local dr. I am worried about this on two fronts.

Firstly, because of the shortages we're still unable to get her actual prescribed meds and it has taken me a lot of negotiation between her consultant and the local trust to keep her on meds that work for her.

Secondly, there are rumours that some NHS trusts won't take on new shared care patients in this way.

And we are only 2 hours away, so I can easily drive up with a prescription.

Has anyone else dealt with this and if so how?

We’ve decided to ignore the advice to register at a local GP and remain with her home one. She can sign in as a temporary patient at a practice near campus/halls if she needs to but on the basis that 99% of our interactions with the GP have been via telephone call it makes no difference whether she is at home or at college as far as I can see, so she may as well continue to do econsults and calls with her normal GP?

The basis from this is the fact that our GP has known DD since she was 9m old, know her very well (and her history) and has happily agreed to shared care with the autism/ADHD clinic we use privately. I am nervous that DD would struggle to find a GP in London (where she’ll be studying) who would be willing to do shared care for ADHD medication for a new patient. I won’t be telling anyone and her GP has said that so long as they’ve not been advised otherwise, they will consider her to still be based at home. For all we know that may actually be the case if she’s home every weekend, and the likelihood is she will live at home/commute in y2 and 3 anyway. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@CautiousLurker01 Thanks, that's really helpful and is very much what I am thinking.

We are only 2 hours away anyway, terms are eight weeks long and DD sees her paediatrician more often that she sees the GP. I might ask the paed - who is brilliant - to recommend that just in case college get difficult.

My DD went to Newcastle.

she moved her GP to a local one.

it was a grade A pain in the ass to be honest.

not just adhd meds, but they also didn’t monitor her thyroid properly and she had to see a consultant privately at home after having a flare.

it’s a nightmare getting the meds no matter where you are in the country.

she also had to change GPs when she moved out of halls to a different one and they would not take shared care so she had to go private which required another mini assessment and lots of money.

keep her where she is.

She can stay with her current GP for now, then go on the NHS app and change her chemist to Pharmazon. They deliver. My ADHD psychiatrist recommends tbem and I am about to do the same.

I've just had a look on my NHS app. You select 'online pharmacies' and below that 'Pharmazon Homecare'. Apparently they specialize in ADHD meds.

Depends which surgery imo. Some of them are really excellent in Oxford, and if anything else comes up, the hospitals there are better than many I've experienced. If it's a bigger college with a college nurse, then they will liaise with the GP surgery; they often act as a sort of triage system. So I'd recommend that she contact the GP surgery and enquire about shared care arrangements before making a decision.
(P.S. congratulations to your DD for getting her results! and make sure she applies for DSA if she hasn't already, in order to get support from a specialist adhd study mentor. It helps a lot)

They're only at college 24 weeks. It's annoying if they get ill during those weeks, but you could just as well show that it's better to stay registered at home for the other 28

College won’t be “difficult”. For students with long term medical issues who feel they will be better served by staying with their home GP just need to give details of their home GP to the College and be mindful of contacting the home GP in a timely fashion if supporting letters for any mitigations are needed. However, don’t rely on getting an emergency appointment as a visitor with an Oxford GP, especially in exam term. That is where you’ll encounter any difficulties.

Just in case anyone else needs the info, we contacted DD's paediatrician who says that Oxford don't have a good reputation for managing ADHD and she would be much better off staying with her local GP.

Also @RejoiceandSing yes she was put onto the DSA scheme by Learning Support at school and she has a mentor + various bits of kit which is amazing.

Ah brilliant!

We’ll be staying with home GP for the same reasons, getting a shared care agreement for NHS adhd prescriptions can be difficult.

If DC really needed to see a GP at university I’d rather pay for a private GP appt than risk paying approx £100 a month for adhd meds.