Urgent advice before paeds apnt tomorrow!

[NotAgain77]

Hello - very much looking for any advice we can take on board fairly quickly.

my son 10 has a diagnosis of adhd and autism for 2 years which we got privately, having waited for 3 years on that waiting list, after school refused to acknowledge he may have need and instead blamed him being rude and bad parenting. As school wouldn’t support a referral we weren’t eligible for right to choose.

diagnosis followed nice procedures and best practice.

we asked for a paediatric referral to discuss adhd medication and medication for sleep. This was 2 years ago. We have this appointment tomorrow. It’s one hour and my son will be there.

we were told this morning the appointment is to reassess for ADHD only.

I am concerned. Don’t know:

• how to position this to my child,
• why the reassessment is needed,
• his original assessment was a full day where they evaluated throughout and found he is very autistic in the morning and very adhd the more tired he gets
• id understood if a child had one condition you should not asses for the other alone.

any advice/thoughts on how to approach?

@NotAgain77

from what I can see online

The NHS often requires a separate, NICE-compliant reassessment for private ADHD diagnoses because they need to confirm the diagnosis before accepting clinical responsibility for prescribing medication.

Autism reassessment may not be included because medication is not used for treatment, making the urgent need for NHS validation lower.

The NHS does not have medication to treat the core features of autism

This site may also explain

It can be normal. It depends on the NHS service &/or the private provider used. Some NHS services, like to reassess before prescribing medication.

Would DS be satisfied with an explanation that the appointment is to look how you/they can best support him? Or will he need something more?

He will absolutely need something more.

challenge is I don’t think he’ll get re diagnosed tomorrow because it’s the morning and that when he is autism dominant, and I am assuming they are assessing adhd only not adhd in the context of autism, and autism impacts the presentation of adhd.

this is worst case but this is going to send my child into a tail spin.

Then I think you either need to be truthful and tell DS the appointment is to assess ADHD and explain the NHS likes their own sometimes.

Any assessment should take into account other diagnoses and other possible diagnoses, so, yes, they absolutely should take into account autism.

I would question who is this appointment is with. Some cahms people are utterly useless. Especially the nurses / those that can prescribe it’s a tick box exercise.

Is your child on adhd meds now via private personally I’d keep it to that. NHS is just a nightmare.

Medicine for sleep you can just buy that or the dr prescribe. When we were private the consultant told me which website to go to buy sleep meds (as that was the cheaper and also safe option) so unless you are getting a consultant I personally wouldn’t bother for a reassessment (I probably wouldn’t even tolerate it as it’s been diagnosed)