Will a private ASD assessment help?

[FlyingFig]

Will try and keep this as brief as I can. I posted a while ago as our referral to our local CAMHS wasn't what we'd thought, with them telling us they aren't qualified to assess for ASD and that they didn't know why the CP had sent us there in the first place. The staff nurse we saw did agree to observe DS in school, which she did today.

She told DS's teacher that she'll be sending her report to the CDC (which seems odd, given that they bounced back the original referral last summer saying that DS was too old!) and she's recommended the school get an EP assessment, but that he or she wouldn't be able to offer any diagnosis either.

I spoke to DS's general paed yesterday who agreed there was no provision for ASD assessment in out area, so when I mentioned the possibility of a private assessment out of the area he became snippy and said there was no need, that a diagnosis wasn't important and that the school should be able to put measures in place to support DS without a formal diagnosis?

So, what to do?! I feel utterly helpless; both the school and I feel diagnosis is important to be able to understand DS's needs and support him, but between me and his teacher we don't know what the hell to do next, if anything?
We do have a diagnosis of sensory processing 'difficulties', dyspraxic 'tendencies' (both movement and speech), central auditory processing 'difficulties', hypermobility syndrome and low muscle tone, seeing physio, OT and awaiting SaLT.

So, if you've managed to get this far, would a private assessment be of any use? The GP also seems clueless and didn't know what I was talking about last time I mentioned an ASD pathway.

I'd have to sell a kidney to fund a private assessment I suspect, but hey ho

We have been told unofficially that a private diagnosis is not woth the paper it is written on.
Because it is the equivelent of if you have enough money they will write what you want them to.

Ah, OK...even if it's an NHS consultant that you see privately? I'm wondering if the GP will fund a referral out of the area, not sure of Choose and Book applies in this instance?

It's a bloody minefield, all of it.

If the assessment is provided by a fully qualified practitioner who has kept up-to-date in their practice, their assessment should be as valuable as anyone else's. NHS diagnosticians are no more qualified. Private assessments tend to be dismissed by those who are not prepared to acknowledge the diagnosis. If anyone does dismiss a privately made diagnosis, you should insist they take legal action against the diagnoser for whatever reason they believe their diagnosis to be incompetently made. I very much doubt they'd put their money where their mouth is then.

We got a private dx and it was initially queried, but the consultant was a paed who worked in the NHS as well, so it was generally accepted in the end.

It was expensive, but it was definitely worthwhile in our case, as we'd been given the runaround with wrong referrals and dismissiveness from the NHS. We could have pushed for more appropriate referrals through the NHS and I know that's what many families do, but that would have added at least a year on to our dx path and I needed to get support for DS quickly.

A dx isn't a magic gateway to support, and it's true that school should be putting support into place even without a dx. But it's a valuable piece of the puzzle: DS is in specialist provision now and he definitely wouldn't be there without a dx.

EPs can't give an ASD dx alone, though they are sometimes part of the dx team. If you are going for a dx from a single practictioner, it needs to be a medically qualified person (paed or psych, sometimes a clinical psych, but not an ed psych or salt).