Update on Psychiatry UK waiting times

If it's gone to a hospital then yes, probably NHS. If you can remember the address or have it somewhere, you should've able to get the contact details for them from their webpage.

ah now that i remember it i think i made me write and send it to some wing of a hospital that specialises in mental health and stuff. so probs direct hospital nhs service rather than a independant group

Do you have copies of the forms you completed? Or where you submitted them to? Both should give you some indication of where your referral was sent to.

i dunno, i got forms to fill in but havent got anything back yet... the main issue was the gp refused to send off the referral for 3 years until i chased them up and they stupidly said oh you want it sent off? ... to,d them to send it off and got forms that i filled and sent back a while now, not sure what company they used.

i changed gp now too as i moved area this year. so that might have messed it all up too but i already filled forms and so on since then. my last gp was totally useless though in every way.... i went to them with heart attack symptoms one time and they gave me a appointment to see them in 4 months lol then they blew me off and didnt do anything or check anything and told me to go away then.

Thank you, that's very helpful. I spent a lot of time on the form so hopefully they find my answers useful. I've looked at the diagnostic criteria and how I fit it so I can reiterate that as well.

No toys or stories, with Psychiatry UK you get a private assessment paid for by the NHS, not the NHS assessment procedure. The psychiatrist who diagnosed me did so mostly from the copious notes I provided, and from our conversation. The only observations he made that were relevant to the diagnosis was that I had a 'flat affect'. I think providing as much written 'history' beforehand is very useful. If you can fit your traits into the criteria listed in the diagnostic manuals, so much the better. I think we were only about 20 minutes into the consultation when I was told that I would be getting a diagnosis of ASD. The rest of the time we were discussing my anxiety and OCD problems. In the end I got two extra diagnoses.

Having gone through the children's testing with my son this year I can definitely confirm that. I was hoping that the adult assessment with Psychiatry UK would be different, I wasn't looking forward to having to play with toys or make up stories.

Yes, the NHS assessment regime is essentially designed for children, with minimal modification for use with adults. As it is reliant on testing and observation by a team of clinicians, it is overly long-winded and costly, hence the stupidly long waiting times. Unfortunately, the NHS has not realised that, while testing and observation are vital for child diagnosis, they are not nearly as important for adults, because you can just ask adults and they will tell you their traits and experiences. DUH!

So it seems. But still better than the wait time for the NHS at the moment.

They seem to have a decent understanding that the people accessing their services are likely autistic and need concrete information. Or at least that's what I'm thinking.

I believe that the Covid lockdowns increased the demand for autism assessments. I was diagnosed by Psychiatry UK in February 2021 and only had to wait 3 weeks - though I paid myself. The extension of the 'Right to Choose' NHS scheme from ADHD to include autism has made the demand for assessment by Psychiatry UK vastly higher.

Was that to Psychiatry UK? If yes, find out the date that your referral was sent, they currently have a 6 week response time to referrals so if it's over that speak to your GP to chase the referral. Once they respond to the referral with the forms and you complete them they then have 5-10 days to confirm receipt, which is where I'm at now.

I don't believe that they suggest stalling, again that's not my experience or that of other people I've talked to about their referrals. Just because that happened to you, doesn't mean it happens to everyone.

I had to threaten my GP because that idiot kept stalling. From what I know, NHS "suggests" the GPs to stall the referrals to PsychUK because they do not want to pay. Too bad that this time they found one of the few aggressive and violent aspies!

That's not my experience at all, particularly about people with Humanities degrees. Considering I know a lot of people that did humanities because that's what I did, I'd say I probably have a better position to know, rather than you who I'm guessing did something different.

All companies aren't like that. I've worked for several that were genuinely good companies to work for, that didn't just say things but followed through on them as well.

As I said to Mark earlier, you can't judge all people/companies by the bad ones.

That's good that they are keeping you informed. Very few keep people in the loop. 

Congratulations on your diagnosis Autumn_Trees.

I was diagnosed last year aged 57!

yeah all companies are like that, they push all the positive stuff for lip service and to look good but yet they are opposite of what they claim. my employer has all sorts of stuff about mental health and has mental health champions but yet everyone who works here gets mental health problems due to how badly the place treats people and they are long forced shifts under threat of punishment if you dare to go home after 8 hours lol followed by a hate campaign by supervisors who target you and want to make example of you or get rid of you.