Published on 12, July, 2020
I have my ASD assessment booked. The NHS waiting list in my area is years and as I am now 36 and struggling with depression and anxiety I think may be related to masking I just don’t feel I can wait that long.
I am incredibly fortunate that through my husband’s job we have private healthcare which will cover a private assessment.
Unfortunately I’ve had a few people tell me that ‘you get what you pay for’ and that private assessors will pretty much diagnose anyone. This is making me really worried and I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this?
The official NICE guidelines say that adults can be diagnosed, at a minimum, by a single suitably qualified clinician, usually a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist or neurologist. This is what you usually get with a private assessment.
There are two things that you need to check for a private diagnosis to be valid, the qualifications, specialisms and membership of a relevant professional medical council/society of the clinician doing the assessment - most private providers allow you to choose a clinician from those on their books - and that the company is suitably registered with the NHS. Any provider that does work through the 'Right to Choose' scheme will be suitably registered as they are being paid by the NHS to do assessments.
I had a private diagnosis with Psychiatry UK. The psychiatrist who diagnosed me recommended a antidepressant to treat my mild depression and my GP prescribed it immediately. Like most other clinicians doing private work, the psychiatrist I had, also worked for the NHS, and was an NHS consultant psychiatrist.
Thank you for reply. I should have mentioned in my original post that I live in Scotland and so Right to Choose isn’t available.
But you can still use private providers who do NHS work, many do online assessments so are not geographically limited.
Yes true Martin, I think if you make sure they are NHS affiliated it would serve you better.
good luck on your journey!!