IDK who needs to hear this but if you're in the UK and seeking an ADHD diagnosis, please just go private if you can. My shared care agreement got declined. 🙃
If you go Right to Choose, make sure they're able to do prescriptions under NHS, but that isn't always guaranteed either - one such provider had to pause their prescriptions due to a company restructuring.
I finished my titration with my ADHD Right to Choose provider last week! On the one hand, the quality of care I got from them was miles ahead of anything I've ever had under the NHS. If you told me a year ago that I would end up not only getting an ADHD diagnosis, but being prescribed medication, and that I'd be starting a coding project, I'd be like "nah you're having a laugh"
On the other hand, they had so many administrative problems that contacting them is fucking frustrating. Unfortunately this is normal for Right to Choose providers. When a new one crops up, they get glowing reviews - and then they get overwhelmed with basically everyone in England who thinks they've got ADHD signing up, and communication problems occur as a result, which leads to frustration.
Ideally, the NHS wouldn't be so strained, doctors would actually get paid, but the fuckers in government won't allow that. While it's just a band-aid on top of a band-aid, I'm grateful this pathway existed in the meantime.
gonna have to thank Jaiden Animations because if it wasn't for her video on her experiences with ADHD, I would not have gotten myself checked and subsequently diagnosed. Her symptoms sounded really close to what I was dealing with.
Anyhow, just wanna let you guys know I finally got diagnosed with ADHD! I've been suspecting it for a good year or so and I believe I was asking around on fedi and Bluesky, but it feels nice to finally know what the hell was going on in my head and have it backed up by an NHS-approved provider. I am on medication, but I'm reluctant to talk about it (haven't even told Bluesky what I'm on) since I'm still early on it.
GPs asked to pull out of ADHD shared-care agreements as part of collective action
This was being discussed on Radio 4 today. > LMC leaders are asking GPs to stop prescribing ADHD medication for patients who have been diagnosed elsewhere as part of collective action. > >In several areas, Pulse has learned that GPs have stopped entering new shared-care agreements for ADHD, however some LMCs wish to go further and have asked GPs to also stop agreements for existing patients. > > And at least one trust has already highlighted the impact of GPs pulling away from providing care to adults with ADHD. > >In Essex, GPs have been advised by LMCs to stop care for patients on adult ADHD pathways in order ‘to focus capacity on core services’. > >A letter to practices recommends they inform Mid and South Essex ICB that they will be ‘withdrawing care to adult ADHD patients currently under their care in three months and to no longer accept new patients’. > >The letter said: ‘This is a rapidly growing issue with multiple providers offering opinions and diagnoses of variable credibility to vulnerable patients. > >‘The associated workload is significant and LMC members recommend that this care be provided by properly commissioned specialist services.’ > >It called a recent offer for a shared care payment of £50 per patient per year ‘derisory’. > > … > > In Dorset, practices taking part in collective action have agreed to decline new shared care requests for ADHD as part of wider collective action. > >Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, who provide mental health services and disability care across the region, have said they were seeing an impact on collective action in terms of return of shared care, specifically for ADHD. > >An update, presented to Newcastle and North Tyneside LMC, said it ‘was impacting on the ability to take on new assessments, specifically with the ADHD pathway’. > > … > > In board papers published in September, the trust said there were currently 12,000 patients on the adult ADHD waiting list increasing month by month with a current average wait of seven years. > >LMC leaders argue that without special financial arrangements ADHD shared care is unfunded work for GPs. > >Dr Adam Janjua, chief executive of Lancashire and Cumbria LMCs said: ‘These shared care agreements are nothing but a request for GPs to take on the workload of secondary care for free.’ > >‘There is absolutely no funding for shared care ADHD and as such practices are being asked to take on extra workload that is completely unfunded.’ > >He said it was up to the commissioners to hold hospitals to account for their inefficient use of outpatient clinics. > >‘If there is a backlog it’s due to poor management and very poor planning from the people that should and must do better.’
Flaky but on Wafrn
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