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.
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.