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No referral, No help

Charlie

Hi, hope im doing this correctly - I’ll try and keep this as condensed as possible. A few months ago, I reached out to the GP for an autism referral. I was told to send in a form (which i did within a few hours of being told to do so) and after that I heard nothing. I know it takes a few years for a referral, at least it does where I live (England) but whenever I try to ask or contact someone from the GP i am turned down. I only recently turned 18 (about two months ago now) and just want some kind of support of guidance. I decided to reach out to my college form tutor about how I believed I had autism (and was fully prepared to list off anything she needed to know) but she completely ignored what I said. She read the message (I felt too anxious to tell her in person) and has not brought it up since.

So my question is, what do I do? Do I try to reach out to my GP again, or do I take a different route and instead tell my actual teachers who may be more equipped to help me or at least try and listen (as this is all I want.) The only issue that could happen is that they try to tell my form tutor themselves, which could be me being paranoid but I feel as if she would only get angry at me. All i want is to be seen and heard, but being female and trying to go for a diagnosis has been so tricky and is starting to take a mental tole on me and ive even started second guessing myself about whether or not I really have it. 

Any help would be much appreciated, thank you. :)

  • If you have the option, use the online econsult to ask if the referral has indeed been sent off for. If you find it has, then it really is a waiting game, and the service will contact you to say they have your referral etc etc, and then you will wait up until they call you for an appointment. Awful, but that’s how it is. 
    Or, you could contact the service who does the assessments directly, and just ask if it’s been received.

    Regarding collage, go to the well-being department, or the SEND department. They should have one. Here is where you can let them know that youve requested a referral for assessment, you can ask them what things they have in place to help students like you, or, you let them know what adjustments you require in order to stay in college, if this applies to you. You should be able to make these changes without a diagnosis.

    Colleges can be quite unhelpful, as they are there to give out the course information. It isn’t like school where they actively help with keeping you there. You do need to push them. As long as they are aware, they sort of leave it up to you to request the things you need.

  • Can your parents help if you’re in good relationships with them. If not, there’s two things you can do. 

    1) Talk to your GP again, ask about the referral. I wouldn’t worry about your form tutor because this is not a good reason to be mad at you. 

    2) As you said you’re 18 now, maybe have a look into Right to Choose. This would allow you to be referred for a private assessment while NHS covers the cost. More information can be found here:  https://psychiatry-uk.com/right-to-choose-asd/  The good thing about them is that the waiting list is way shorter. But some people complained about the assessment being too brief (I can’t comment on that since I’m still waiting for my assessment as well), so it is something to be considered. Another thing is that, my assessment date is delayed to 6 months with no explanation. It’s still faster than NHS and since I have no other choices but wait so I can’t complain too much about it. But depending on how urgent you need your assessment it is something to be aware of.

    Off the topic, if you’re considering going to universities, do check your university choices and see if they accept waiting diagnosis. This would mean that you can receive help from the disability department while waiting for an assessment, it could be really helpful if that’s what you needed.

    I hope you get everything sorted soon!