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Private autism assessments

NAS88104

It's looking increasingly as though my son (19) will have to go down the private assessment route as locally will only assess if the person is at risk of harm to themselves or others

The pricing is way out of our reach and then I found Harley Psychiatrists which is just shy of £700 how do I find out if they are reputable please? Has anyone used them?

The GP is supporting his assessment but it's whether they will accept and how long the wait is (started the process a year ago but the locum GP didn't send the referral then had to go through the do it profiler) own GP has written a letter to the uni to ask for accommodations for testing etc like a separate room due to sensory issues

I don't know how best to support for him to be assessed and moving forward 

Can anyone advise? 

  • Hi , in addition to the responses you've had, it's really important that the professional your son sees has experience of autism spectrum disorders. You can find details of diagnostic services on our Autism Services Directory in the Assessment and diagnosis section: 

    https://www.autism.org.uk/directory 

    Best wishes,

    Anna Mod

  • I may be wrong, but I feel like Harley Psychiatrists were mentioned in the recent panorama programme about ADHD diagnoses. Probably worth a watch before spending your money. 

  • in reply to DeSpereaux

    If you use the former section to identify an issue with your child, and link to a risk in the latter section, you should have no problems explaining and justifying a risk that you feel you’ve observed..

  • You can make an argument of RISK of harm to self or others, I’d say that’s a pretty easy argument to make, can’t the GP help to confirm that RISK.. note he doesn’t have to BE harming others or himself..

  • in reply to Martin

    Thank you so much, I saw the Psychiatry UK site and they have a helpful letter to take to the gp which is good too the GP is trying to refer directly based on a delay in health treatment (dental anxiety and removal of tooth) but he's not hopeful will speak to him about this option as he suggested a private route

  • There is a scheme 'Right to Choose', where GPs can refer people to private clinical providers for adult ASD assessment, but the NHS pays. The most watertight way of ensuring that a private provider is reputable is to check that they receive this type of referral funded by the NHS. See here for details of one such provider and the scheme: psychiatry-uk.com/.../  Of course such providers also undertake private assessments, with no need for GP involvement, which are probably faster than through the scheme, though obviously expensive.

    My daughter (autistic) recently graduated with a 1st class degree in Chemistry (she also won the course prize). She found the accommodations from the university very helpful and doubted that she would have completed her degree without them, so pursuing a diagnosis can be very useful.