NHS OT - what are the waiting lists/times like in your area

[bjkmummy]

I had suspicions daughter maybe dyspraxic - asked school to refer in her dec as GP wouldn't and said it had to be the school. school then said they would contact school nurse - in January I spoke to the school nurse myself and no referral from the school had been done as school not contacted them. did the referral over the phone. got to the end of feb - chased it up and referral gone missing so re done again.

yesterday finally got the letter asking me to to make an appointment which will be the end of June for an assessment. if it is anything like her brother , if they decide she needs therapy it wont start until at least sept and I think with my son we had to wait until nov so in reality from start to finish to get any therapy will have take a whole year.

as we are off to tribunal she was seen privately on Monday so I know she has hypermobility, difficulties with proprioception and possible developmental coordination difficulties rather than dyspraxia. she can also not hold a pencil properly which is causing her issues with holding her pencil so ideally want that sorting out as she is now 10 but reality is no therapy until she is 11 which may be too late to change her pencil grip.

is my waiting time the norm across the country? OT seems to be in such short supply or huge demand

We waited about 18 months for ds to be assessed by NHS ot.

I've never got to the top of NHS OT waiting lists for dd1, in 3 different areas ! She's 9 now, was dx'd at 2 and has never had NHS OT.

Thankfully it's all been handled by her school for the last few years.

thanks polter I will take a look - my older son was left and by the time he got to secondary and saw an OT it was too late for him to change his handwriting / pen grip so want to try with my daughter to help her as she is likely to go through mainstream whereas her brother is in a special school - have to say though his handwriting is so neat considering how he writes so he has learnt to deal with it his own way.

It depends which way the wind's blowing. We've had anything from a few months to a couple of years. In fact, DS1 was referred a year before DS2 and DS2 was seen first and got appointments with 2 different teams!

I just went private when I needed a report for tribunal.

Paed referred DS to OT last year and he was assessed pretty quickly (8 weeks I think it was). But paed contacted OT again at the beginning of January regarding DS' hypermobility and we haven't heard anything yet.

Ours have been quite quick (referral and assessment within 6 weeks) but sadly they are even quicker to discharge. They also seem to struggle keeping the information on Ds accurate e.g DS was diagnosed with ASD over a year ago yet recent paed report states he is awaiting an ASD diagnosis after referring to his ASD several times in the report.

Ds was Referred beginning of January and we have not long received a letter stating they will see him within 18 weeks of the of the date of the letter so the longest we will wait from referral to assessment is 6 months hopefully.

I have asked for ds to be assessed for sensory issues. I have been told that the waiting list is 2 years. Ds is 18 in Sept so will age out of the system and adult OT doesn't do sensory issues. On top of this the referral has been messed about in ways too complicated to go into.

I am just about to go and chase it up (again).

Paed referred Ds in December we have first appointment end of April.