NHS vs. independent diagnosis - what's the difference?

I think like many things on the NHS, it's both a personal & postcode lottery.

Where I live in North Manchester, all NHS diagnosis of ASD, ADHD, Dyslexia & Dyspraxia seems to be outsourced to a private company called LancUK. The 'Lanc' part doesn't seem to be anything to do with Lancashire though, since they are based down South.

It took over a year from my initial referral to receive a confirmed written diagnosis of ASD in August 2017, although I did have a verbal confirmation at the end of my second consultation four months earlier (yes it really did take them that long to write it up). My ASD referral was after a year of failed Psychotherapy, for which I also had to wait 18 months from the initial referral. Had I been properly assessed from the start, I could literally have saved two & half years of my life from being wasted.

The ASD diagnosis didn't alter anything with regard to my ongoing problems with depression though & in September 2018 I was referred to LancUK again, but this time for an ADHD assessment. Prior to the second referral, I didn't know much about ADHD apart from the usual misleading cliches about school-children not being able to sit still in lessons. Much of the reasoning given for my second referral involved my severe life-long issues with low self esteem & poor self image that I had described many times to mental health professionals over the last five years, including fairly detailed descriptions during my ASD assessment.

I was referred for the ADHD assessment as a probable explanation for my treatment resistant depression. ADHD in adults is often linked to problems with chronically low self esteem & constant fear of rejection, which inevitably leads to frequent bouts of severe depression. The specialist mental health nurse who made my ADHD referral was convinced this was why both psychotherapy & anti-depressants have had no effect on me at all, i.e. those treatments could never work for me because they were targeting the wrong thing. I asked him why no-one else had suggested that in the last five years & he just said that ADHD still wasn't that widely understood & people without specialist knowledge might not recognise the symptoms. When I asked why LancUK hadn't suggested it during my ASD assessment (given that it was supposed to be one of their specialities), he just said that they are probably only supposed to look for one thing at a time.

Sadly, the current system in the NHS for identifying people affected by ASD, ADHD & Dyspraxia is ridiculously unreliable & incredibly slow.

I think like many things on the NHS, it's both a personal & postcode lottery.

Where I live in North Manchester, all NHS diagnosis of ASD, ADHD, Dyslexia & Dyspraxia seems to be outsourced to a private company called LancUK. The 'Lanc' part doesn't seem to be anything to do with Lancashire though, since they are based down South.

It took over a year from my initial referral to receive a confirmed written diagnosis of ASD in August 2017, although I did have a verbal confirmation at the end of my second consultation four months earlier (yes it really did take them that long to write it up). My ASD referral was after a year of failed Psychotherapy, for which I also had to wait 18 months from the initial referral. Had I been properly assessed from the start, I could literally have saved two & half years of my life from being wasted.

The ASD diagnosis didn't alter anything with regard to my ongoing problems with depression though & in September 2018 I was referred to LancUK again, but this time for an ADHD assessment. Prior to the second referral, I didn't know much about ADHD apart from the usual misleading cliches about school-children not being able to sit still in lessons. Much of the reasoning given for my second referral involved my severe life-long issues with low self esteem & poor self image that I had described many times to mental health professionals over the last five years, including fairly detailed descriptions during my ASD assessment.

I was referred for the ADHD assessment as a probable explanation for my treatment resistant depression. ADHD in adults is often linked to problems with chronically low self esteem & constant fear of rejection, which inevitably leads to frequent bouts of severe depression. The specialist mental health nurse who made my ADHD referral was convinced this was why both psychotherapy & anti-depressants have had no effect on me at all, i.e. those treatments could never work for me because they were targeting the wrong thing. I asked him why no-one else had suggested that in the last five years & he just said that ADHD still wasn't that widely understood & people without specialist knowledge might not recognise the symptoms. When I asked why LancUK hadn't suggested it during my ASD assessment (given that it was supposed to be one of their specialities), he just said that they are probably only supposed to look for one thing at a time.

Sadly, the current system in the NHS for identifying people affected by ASD, ADHD & Dyspraxia is ridiculously unreliable & incredibly slow.

Pirate Santa said:

My ASD referral was after a year of failed Psychotherapy, for which I also had to wait 18 months from the initial referral. Had I been properly assessed from the start, I could literally have saved two & half years of my life from being wasted.

Your experience mirrors mine. In and out of shrinks offices from tje age of about 13. In and out of primary, and secondary mental health care from about the age of 16.

My GP was the person that refferred me after knowing me for years. He had next to no mental health experience, but noticed the signs. The mental health system didn't know, notice, or care.

I get mad for myself and other people when I read stories like yours.

Wasted time, distress, and a whole lot of other ***. Sorry to hear you went through it too.