Discrepancy with Psychiatry UK response time?

Rocinante said:

Any ideas why this discrepancy?

Their website does say that it can take up to 3 months from referral to contact you:

https://psychiatry-uk.com/waiting-times-update/#initial-assessment-wait-times

It can take up to 3 months to process your referral.  

It is probably just the way the requests are processed in batches that leads to this randomness of timing.

It sounds like you got really lucky though.

Well Rocinante it could be true that response times depend on the geographical location or maybe the amount of caseload they handle in respective regions. Perhaps your friend’s area has a heavier outstanding load at the moment? If they are concerned, they might want to try to directly email Psychiatry UK to find out about this.

But Psychiatry UK is a national service, so once you've been referred into it what would explain the difference? Would different funding arrangements by different GP Primary Care Networks (who I think provide the funding) make a difference to how quickly someone is seen?

It probably does make a difference, mental health is a cinderella service at the best of times and in some parts of the country more so than others.