How long does a diagnosis take?

[SuperIris]

Sorry if I'm in the wrong place but I could really do with some advice.
I've had some suspicions that my almost 7 year old son may have add or adhd due to several of his behaviours.
A few months back I had a phone consultation with our gp who asked me lots of questions about him. She asked that I get school to write a letter stating what he is struggling with and what impact it has on him.
They did and it was quite hard to read seeing what his issues in school are.
Then, for a while, his behaviour seemed to improve. He wasn't being sent into other classes and had settled down.
Dh really didn't want to look into any kind of assessment but over the past couple of weeks our son's behaviour has got worse.
Tonight has been tough apparently. I've been in work so missed it all.
Dh has looked for the letter but it's gone missing so he's asked me to get them to do another.
I've suggested going private for an assessment but Dh seems to think it will be a quick process so there's no need. I know from friends that nothing happens quickly when it comes to neuro diverse support.

What sort of timescale are we looking at?
If they do decide he has adhd or similar what's the process from there?
I know so little of it.
Thank you

I think the answer to this will depend on where you are in the country.

Ah right. North west.

Even within the NW different areas will have different waiting times.

Thank you. Wasn't sure if there was a vague estimate.

In my area (SE London) a friend was recently told it's around 6 months for an ADHD assessment and two years for an ASD assessment. My friend's DS has already been on the pathway for about a year though already, waiting to be seen by a community paediatrician to decide if he warrants being put on those waiting lists. So potentially you're looking at 18 months/3 years.

I understand it can vary a fair bit around the country though.

In terms of actually getting your DS on a wait list, again it varies from area to area. I would make another appointment with GP and ask them what the pathway is and also timescales. They may know.

Private assessments can still be around 6 months now as ironically so many are having to go private to avoid the long waits.

I would also say though that your DS doesn't need a diagnosis of anything to get additional support at school. My son had 1 to 2 support before he finally got his diagnosis (ASD) as it's meant to be based on need.

Some good info here:

www.ipsea.org.uk/Pages/Category/how-should-your-nursery-school-or-college-help

Thank you. That's really helpful. And quite sad that it's such a long wait.

I'm in the South East, we were referred by the school in December, we have seen CAMHS and Developmental Paediatrics (DevP). In our area DevP do the assessments for ADHA/ASD, I know in others it is CAMHS.

At our face to face appointment with DevP (which took 6 months to get to, though we had had paperwork ahead of this) they said they would be referring for an assessment (based on the info gathered by that point) for ADHD/ASD which would take about 8 months in our area, so it should be around 14 months from referral if they decide he has it.

I have been told the normal wait times in our area are about 18-24 months for CAMHS.

Whereas where I am, in the Midlands, a diagnosis of ADHD would be nothing to do with CAMHS.

The Authority I am in has different systems and process, and different waiting lists from all the other authorities that we border with.