If you are requesting a referral for ADHD assessment it is essential that you read everything on this page carefully otherwise you might not get the help you need.
Referral for assessment for ADHD for adults and children can be a complex process. This page is designed to help you through it as smoothly as possible.
You can be referred for an ADHD assessment in one of three ways:
1. Referral to local services.
Although the waiting times are quite long, these services are designed to work well with local GPs. There aren’t usually any issues with patients getting medication if they need it. If you wish to be referred to the local service, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button.
2. Right to Choose.
The Right to Choose scheme means you can be referred to any service that has an NHS contract in England. People usually choose them because the waiting times are shorter. However, many do not provide a full service compared with what you would get locally. The result of this is that we may not be able to prescribe you ADHD medication if you need it.
Some of the Right to Choose providers are not local. If you need any tests or reviews, they cannot be done at the surgery. Be prepared for the possibility of travelling long distances to be able to get any necessary tests done.
For more details on Right to Choose, please see below. We must emphasise that, if you elect to be referred to a Right to Choose provider, it is your responsibility to make sure you fully understand the implications. By nominating a Right to Choose provider, you are accepting this responsibility. Remember, you may not be able to get your medications from us, and may be left without any access to medication at all, and back at the beginning of a waiting list.
3. Private referral.
Sometimes people decide to have a private referral for ADHD assessment. Whilst the assessment may be a one-off cost, you should factor in the cost of ongoing treatment as you will have to keep paying for your prescriptions from the private specialist. Like most surgeries, Westlands will not prescribe ADHD medications on behalf of a private provider, for quality and safety reasons. We can refer you for NHS treatment at any time, but please be aware that the waiting times are long, you will enter at the back of the queue, and the NHS provider may not recognise the ADHD diagnosis made by a private provider. We have no control over this.
Right to Choose
The Right to Choose scheme for ADHD offers the choice of a number of providers. In order to be a Right to Choose provider, the company has to hold an NHS contract somewhere in England. The problem is that the contents of that contract vary from place to place. Locally we know that the provider will do everything needed for us to prescribe your medication safely. Not every Right to Choose provider will do this.
The medications used for the treatment of ADHD are specialist medications, and fall into the category of ‘shared care agreement’ drugs. A shared care agreement is a written agreement between a patient, their GP, and a hospital consultant and sets out the responsibilities of everyone, including who should prescribe, monitoring, and make referrals. The agreement allows the patient to obtain their medicine from their GP, rather than having to visit the hospital. Shared care agreements are voluntary for GPs, and we are not required to enter into them.
Westlands will refer you to any Right to Choose provider that you decide you would like to be seen by. However, we will not enter into shared care agreements with every provider because some do not do enough to make the prescribing safe. We can’t give you a list of who we will and won’t undertake shared care with because providers often change, so do their policies on what they will and won’t do.
As a general rule, Westlands will enter a shared care agreements with providers who meet the same criteria as our local NHS service. It is therefore really important that you check that the provider you want to be referred to can meet these criteria, otherwise we will not be able to prescribe for you, and you may not be able to get medication at all.
What is required of them is set out in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Shared Care Guidelines. If a Right to Choose provider will not comply with these requirements then we will not prescribe.
It is important that you find out whether your preferred Right to Choose provider will meet the criteria for shared care prescribing. We cannot do this for you and we do not accept any responsibility for you not being able to get medication through the Right to Choose process.
To help you, we have created a letter which you can download and send to a Right to Choose provider to find out whether they can meet the shared care criteria.
If they confirm they can meet these criteria, then it is likely we will be able to prescribe your medication. If they can’t, we will still refer you if you wish, but know that there is no guarantee of medication being available to you.
You must do this before you tell us who you want to be referred to.
Click here to see a flowchart on how the Right to Choose process should work.
Your responsibility
If you choose to go down the Right to Choose pathway, it is your responsibility to make sure the provider you choose will meet the crtieria of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Shared Care Guidelines. The flow chart and sample letter are all you need to do this. We cannot check on your behalf or confirm before referral.
Due to the frequent changes in provider of ADHD assessments, and the increasing demands on general practice, we cannot accept any responsibility for being unable to prescribe ADHD medications. Remember that we will never enter into shared care agreements with private providers and Right to Choose providers should always be organisations who can prescribe medications independently of the GP.
We do not accept any responsibility for disruption to access of medications if a provider is selected who cannot provide ongoing prescriptions on the NHS in the absence of GP input, and reserve the right to decline to enter into a shared care agreement or withdraw from a shared care agreement at any time.
If you have read, understand and accept the information on this page, please click the button below to request an ADHD assessment and provide us with the necessary information.
Otherwise, if you have further questions, please complete a Routine Healthcare Request form, mentioning that you have read this page.