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NHS Right to Choose - Central East

Goldfinch

Hi everyone,

I have been on a waiting list for an assessment for a couple of months, originally informed this would be about 6 months.

All of my initial tests and questionnaires are complete, so I'm just playing the waiting game.

I received a letter from my provider today informing me that the NHS Central East Integrated Care Team (ICB) have paused all funding for assessments immediately. 

"Due to high demand for autism and ADHD assessments and wider NHS budgets, we are unable to proceed with routine new assessments for patients referred through the Right to Choose pathway in your area. This is because funding arrangements for these assessments are currently under review by the ICB. As a result, you will remain on our waiting list until we receive further confirmation regarding future funding and service capacity".

Does anyone have any experience of what this means in practice - when is this generally reviewed? How long will the additional wait be? Do I move to the bottom of the waiting list, or rise to the top as soon as funding becomes available?

In my professional experience of budgets, this generally refreshes at the start of the next financial year in April - does this mean the 2026/27 budget has already maxed out (In August!) and therefore won't be reviewed until April 2027?

I'm extremely apprehensive about this, and am considering taking myself off the waiting list and going private given the now open-ended timescales.

Parents

  • Can't comment on central east but I was on a list for over three years and after poking for an update via my referer discovered that the provider had stopped taking referrals from my postcode area and that I should go with my local provider.

    Guess what... they were my local provider, because my local authority are so dreadfully *** that they've always farmed out to them.

    I'm now on a right to choose pathway... Think I'm behind their supposed waitlist time too so am expecting a similar outcome.

    The only saving grace for me is that I've been told that I am autistic by a psychiatrist who is qualified to diagnose, but can't formally diagnose within the capacity in which he saw me, which is ironic given no one in that area can apparently tell me officially that I am.

    He was kind enough to writes to me and explain all this though,  which has stopped me internally wrestling with the whole decade and a half worth of 'am I autistic' thing... I am. 

    It's a mess.  

Reply

  • Can't comment on central east but I was on a list for over three years and after poking for an update via my referer discovered that the provider had stopped taking referrals from my postcode area and that I should go with my local provider.

    Guess what... they were my local provider, because my local authority are so dreadfully *** that they've always farmed out to them.

    I'm now on a right to choose pathway... Think I'm behind their supposed waitlist time too so am expecting a similar outcome.

    The only saving grace for me is that I've been told that I am autistic by a psychiatrist who is qualified to diagnose, but can't formally diagnose within the capacity in which he saw me, which is ironic given no one in that area can apparently tell me officially that I am.

    He was kind enough to writes to me and explain all this though,  which has stopped me internally wrestling with the whole decade and a half worth of 'am I autistic' thing... I am. 

    It's a mess.  

Children
  • in reply to Acquiesce

    oh, and to add insult to injury I was first reffered for an autism diagnosis way back in 2012 (I think) before the 'explosion in referrals' or whatever happened, but the refering doctor made such a mess of it that, despite my ridiculously high scores on the test (I forget the name of), it got knocked back. 

    I've been through 3 pretty severe burnouts since then, at least two of which involved the whole 'what on earth is wrong with me' thing prior to getting in front of the CMHT to unpick it all... and I wouldn't have even managed that if I wasn't such a stubborn ****. 

    My experience of 'the system', from more than just this angle incidentally, is that it is totally broken.