ADHD

AWP ADHD service is a specialist team of doctors, psychologists and nurses who work exclusively with adults who have ADHD. The service can reassess and continue treatment of people who have a diagnosis of ADHD from childhood; they also assess adults who have never had a diagnosis made.

Our local Adult ADHD service (AWP) have very long waiting times (5 years+) however, we can now refer patients to outside service providers for NHS Assessment and Diagnosis via Right to Choose (RTC). If you wish to be referred to AWP, please make an appointment with a GP in the first instance.

RTC Providers: These are a few services that offer RTC.  The list is not exhaustive.  

• ADHD 360 - You must have an email address to be referred to this provider 
• Atrom Mindcare Ltd
• Care ADHD
• Clinical Partners (age 16 years and over)
• Dr J & Colleagues
• Healios
• ADHD Net
• Harrow Health
• Health Harmonie Minds
• Oakdale Group
• Problem Shared
• Psicon
• Psychiatry UK - You jmust have an email address to be referred to this provider 
• RTN Medical
• Skylight Psychiatry
• The Owl Centre

PLEASE SELECT YOUR PROVIDER CAREFULLY AS YOUR CHOICE CANNOT BE CHANGED ONCE THE REFERRAL HAS BEEN PROCESSED.

How to start a RTC referral request:

1. Patients who wish to use RTC must first visit each of the websites to ensure that they have read and finalised their decision. (Patients are only able to select one RTC provider).  
2. Once you have chosen your service provider, please download the necessary documentation (there is a link to this on each of the web pages)
3. Return your completed documents to Bedminster Family Practice either by email (bedminsterfamilypractice@nhs.net), by post or face to face. Please allow 7 days before arranging a GP appointment. This will enable us to upload the documents onto our clinical system.

Children with suspected ADHD should be referred by school Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCo) where possible rather than via a GP. They will be asked to complete the the School Referral Questionnaire for assessment of ADHD.

This is preferable as:

1. Information from school is required as part of the assessment and is required before the assessment can begin
2. Schools need to be aware of the concerns and may be able to resolve some of issues with classroom intervention without the need for referral
3. If a referral is received from a GP for a child who is in a school setting, without an explanation as to why a referral from school is not possible, the referral will be returned with the referrer directed to the school referral pathway

If you wish your child to be referred to the Local ADHD Service:

• complete the Parent Questionnaire for assessment of ADHD and return this directly to the School SENCo Coordinator
• young people over the age of 11 years may also want to give their own perspective on their symptoms.  If your child wishes to do this, please ask them to complete the Young Person Questionnaire for assessment of ADHD and return it together with the "Parent Questionnaire" to the School SENCo Lead

 Children outside of education or are home educated will need to contact the GP to arrange a referral.

"Right to Choose" (RTC) Providers

Currently Local ADHD Services have very long waiting times, however, your child can be referred to outside service providers for NHS Assessment and Diagnosis via RTC providers. 

1. Parents who wish to use RTC must first visit each of the websites (links below) to ensure that they read and finalise their decision (your child will only able to be referred to one of the services at the time of referral)
2. Once you have chosen your child's service provider, please download the relevant documents from the providers web page.  Completed forms can be returned to Bedminster Family Practice via email (bedminsterfamilypractice@nhs.net), by post or face to face.  Please allow 7 working days for the forms to be uploaded to our clinical system before making a GP appointment

For the full list of RTC providers please visit: Right to Choose - ADHD UK

Children under 5

Although children can present from an early age with ADHD symptoms, local community paediatric services are not able to prescribe medication for ADHD in children under the age of 5 and restrict assessments until children are over this age. 

However, families who have children with ADHD symptoms that are aged under 5 years can receive support through locally delivered behavioural interventions focussing on the management of attention difficulties and challenging behaviour, such as the Incredible Years course. These can be accessed without a formal diagnosis of ADHD

Parenting programmes, advice and telephone support

Happymaps also has useful resources for parents and professionals for children at different ages:

• Pre-school age
• Primary school age
• Secondary school age

Children over the age of 17 years and 6 months will be re-directed to adult ADHD Services as their assessment will not be completed before they turn 18 years old.

Neurodiversity, autism and ADHD information for parents