I don’t quite understand how a “minimum wait” makes any sense. I understand a “likely waiting list time”, such as “we process this many per day, and there are this many on the list, therefore it’ll take about three years for anyone newly applying to be seen”.
They process a certain amount per day, so after two years, you’re either at the front of the queue or you’re not. Unless they catch up with the waiting list and then say “we’re not doing any assessments for three months, because we have a minimum wait time”.
I had to look at wikipedia to understand it. I think it’s do do with this right:
A patient not seen in the 18-week period without just cause has the legal right to go private at the NHS’s expense.
From the article:
“Minimum waits” after referral by a GP mean people in the areas affected cannot seek an assessment by a private sector provider. That is even though private clinics now undertake half of NHS-funded assessments of ADHD and a third of those for autism, because many patients exercise their legal right to choose non-NHS care, given the NHS’s own limited capacity to do the assessments.
Such curbs by the NHS are likely to force those who can afford it to pay a private provider for an assessment for themselves or their child, which can cost several thousand pounds. They are being implemented at a time when there are 960,000 people in England waiting for an ADHD assessment and another 295,000 awaiting one for autism.
So basically, it means that you can’t exercise your legal right to get treatment from a private provider, paid for by the NHS, if the NHS can’t see you within 18 weeks. Instead, that pushes people who want to get evaluated within 2 years, to pay for private assessment themselves.
That’s really useful, thanks - and actually makes a lot more sense of the article. Thanks for looking that up and explaining it clearly :)
Now understanding a bit more, I’m not too angry about it. Some of these private assessors are doing a half-arsed job, then charging the NHS a fortune for it, then leaving the NHS to deal with their shoddy half-done assessments.
My son was recently diagnosed, meeting the criteria of autism. While I’m no expert along the way we did learn a few things. The school can refer. The GP can refer to NHS which itself is confusing because some doctors say they can’t and some say they can. We went down the “right to choose” option. This is only available in certain areas of England, basically the parents find a clinic which offers this service then go to the GP for them to approve and send the request over to the clinic. I assume this is funded by the NHS.
This took us 4 months from begging of the process to getting the result. But it depends which provider you use.
The school said their referral is faster than the NHS but still takes a long time, usually years. Reading the article I think the added delays are probably against the school and NHS option, but it’s not really clear to me.
I’d say anybody in need of an assessment, go with right to choose, if available. And speak to the schools SEND personnel. Do parenting courses or courses on ASD/ADHD (we did triple P). All of this will allow you to have a collection of teacher/parent/sendco assessments and evidence. Do this before going to the GP.
…why?
I think it’s good though that more and more resources are available to people who are simply on the waiting list. But still.
I can understand trying to get a handle on reimbursements going to private providers when it’s causing drastic cost increases, but surely that should be accompanied by a plan to rapidly scale the timeline for publicly handled assessments? Our local university (US) just rolled out a specific ADHD assessment clinic because the demand (and, I am guessing the liability for prescribing ADHD meds as well) has skyrocketed.
West Yorkshire NHS integrated care board has introduced a minimum waiting time of two years from referral for anyone seeking an ADHD or autism assessment with an independent provider. That was in response to its bill for such assessments soaring from £7m in 2023-24 to £21m last year, it said.
