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Private ASD testing in the UK

picitup

Hi All

I guess many have been where I am atm.  I was diagnosed as bipolar around 20 years ago, but have always wondered about being autistic.  The last time I had some MH support, a number of different professionals asked me if I thought I might be autistic.  They agreed to refer me to the NHS service to be tested.  But......

The wait is 5 years and at 66, might be dead then.  Also I asked how it was going and where I was in the queue about 12 months ago, but they said if they ring up, they are told "don't ask, we'll be in touch" which is fairly useless.  That brings up the other worry.  Many have had the experience of long waiting times in the NHS and when you chase it up, you find you've 'fallen off the radar' and are no longer in the queue.  So.....

I decided to research getting tested privately.  I did find a site:

https://connecttoautism.org/ 

So I'm going to give them a go.  You can book a free 15 minute consultation which I'll do when I get home.  I like the charging structure as it's £300 for an initial test then a further £1200 for the full test.  Not cheap, but you have the opportunity of jumping ship at the £300 mark if they think the full test is not warranted.

I think I'm going to go for it and will update this thread on what happens and what I think of it.  She says the diagnosis is recognised in the UK, so that's a plus for me.  I have no affiliation with them and will proceed with caution.

If anyone has any experience of private testing,  I'd be very interested to hear about other services and your experience of them.

Have a nice day y'all......

Steve

Parents

  • Hi and welcome to the community.

    If you live in England, then you might like to ask your GP about re-referring you using the Right to Choose pathway (RTC), which you are entitled to use instead if you wish.

    In England (only), this enables access to certain, approved, private autism assessment providers who typically have much shorter waiting lists than the NHS, but with your referral and assessment still fully funded by the NHS. 

    I was on an NHS waiting list for two years before I learned about RTC and switched to it (on the recommendation of an NHS psychiatrist). My assessment and diagnosis (I chose to use Psychiatry UK) then followed around just four months later.

    Some examples of RTC providers are listed here.

    More information about RTC is included here:

    NAS - How to request an autism assessment

Reply

  • Hi and welcome to the community.

    If you live in England, then you might like to ask your GP about re-referring you using the Right to Choose pathway (RTC), which you are entitled to use instead if you wish.

    In England (only), this enables access to certain, approved, private autism assessment providers who typically have much shorter waiting lists than the NHS, but with your referral and assessment still fully funded by the NHS. 

    I was on an NHS waiting list for two years before I learned about RTC and switched to it (on the recommendation of an NHS psychiatrist). My assessment and diagnosis (I chose to use Psychiatry UK) then followed around just four months later.

    Some examples of RTC providers are listed here.

    More information about RTC is included here:

    NAS - How to request an autism assessment

Children
  • in reply to Bunny

    Thank you.  I do live in England and have recently been reading about the RTC pathway for other reasons.  I wsa prepared to fork out the £1500, but it's quite a chunk for me, so if I could get it free on the NHS, that would be just dandy and 4 months is much better than 5 years!

    I'll check the links out you provided, thank you.  I do like forums and always have.  So much shared knowledge!

    Cheers

    Steve