ADHD and Autism Referrals and Medication

If you’re waiting too long to see a specialist or start treatment, the NHS Right to Choose might allow you to pick a different service with shorter waiting times.

As long as the provider is approved by the NHS, you can request to go somewhere else, even if it’s outside your local area.

It’s a way to make sure you don’t have to wait longer than necessary to get the care you need.

Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), which oversee the planning and funding of healthcare services in England, are required to honour the NHS Right to Choose under the NHS Constitution.

If you’re not being offered a choice, you can remind your ICB of your right. You can also contact NHS England for support if you feel your right to choose isn’t being upheld.

Update: Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board (HWE ICB) have advised that those patients who obtain an ADHD diagnosis from a private provider via the NHS Right to Choose Pathway  will need to remain under the care of the private provider if they wish to commence medication for ADHD. This is due to the nature of medications used in the management of ADHD, which usually require monitoring and specialist review.

At present, Fernvile is unable to accept a shared care agreement with private providers for medication prescriptions as Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB do not recommend shared care between NHS GPs and private providers. This means if parents or guardians wish for the child to have ADHS medication prescribed by the GP, the child will need to wait for their local NHS service to assess and take over their care.

Please contact: england.choice@nhs.net or hweicbwe.patientfeedback@nhs.net

Before booking an appointment with your GP regarding this please make sure you look at this diagnosis pathway for ADHD and complete the screening questionnaire, save your score and bring it with you.

Exemptions to Right to Choose

Certain people can not use Right to Choose if they are:

• already receiving mental health care following an elective referral for the same condition
• referred to a service that is commissioned by a local authority, for example a drug and alcohol service (unless commissioned under a Section 75 agreement)
• accessing urgent or emergency (crisis) care
• accessing services delivered through a primary care contract
• in high secure psychiatric services
• detained under the Mental Health Act 1983
• detained in a secure setting. This includes people in or on temporary release from prisons, courts, secure children’s homes, certain secure training centres, immigration removal centres or young offender institutions
• serving as a member of the armed forces (family members in England have the same rights as other residents of England.

For more information on Right to Choose and to find the list of providers who offer this:

If you choose to obtain an ADHD assessment privately, we will be unable to take over prescribing of your ADHD medication.

We are only able to take over prescribing ADHD medication which has been started by an NHS service once we have an NHS shared care agreement.

This is due to rules set by the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB), which state for us to take over prescribing of ADHD medication:

1. A patient must be diagnosed with ADHD by an NHS specialist, who confirms that the prescribing of ADHD medicine is in line with NHS criteria.
2. Diagnosed with ADHD by an NHS specialist, who confirms that the prescribing of ADHD medicine is in line with NHS criteria.
3. Shared care agreements may only be formed between NHS organisations. There is no local policy which allows shared care agreements to be formed between private and NHS organisations.
4. Shared care documents from private providers, which have not gone through the ICB’s governance processes cannot be accepted by GPs