The practice is receiving a very high number of requests for ADHD or Autism assessments.
Please note if you pay privately for your assessment, you will not be eligible for NHS prescriptions if you are diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD. You will need to continue paying privately for the medication.
NHS Approved Services
You can use an NHS approved service under the Right To Choose Scheme. PLEASE NOTE ANY REFERRAL REQUEST STARTS BY YOU CHOOSING A PROVIDER.
The practice will not provide your NHS medications, these will be provided to you, as an NHS prescription by the Right To Choose provider.
We will not share care with the Right To Choose provider as we are currently managing too many requests and this will compromise the safety of care.
The team at St Leonards are always keen to support patients in accessing the right service but we cannot put forward referrals where the forms are incorrectly completed or the provider chosen does not hold a contract with NHS Devon.
If you are considering accessing an ADHD/ Autism assessment via Right to Choose, please be aware of the following:
- The only providers currently contracted to NHS Devon can be found at the following link.
https://northeast.devonformularyguidance.nhs.uk/referral-guidance/key-messages/adhd-and-autism-faq
If you choose a different provider this will NOT BE PAID FOR BY THE NHS.
In addition, we are unable to complete ANY forms on behalf of patients as this is a key criterion of the assessment.
- The practice will take a minimum of 4 weeks to process Right to Choose referral requests. This is due to the administrative time required to verify eligibility, review the clinical appropriateness, and complete referral documentation. As a practice we will always prioritise referrals clinically, with 2 week waits, stroke referrals and urgent referrals being managed first. Routine matters can take several weeks.
- It is your responsibility to complete all relevant forms accurately and in full. These are usually provided by the chosen ADHD service provider. Incomplete or incorrect forms will delay the referral process. We will not complete these on your behalf, and we cannot transfer information to the correct form.
- All forms submitted must be done as a word document or PDF. We cannot accept these in any other format due to the limitations of our IT system.
Before submitting a request, please ensure that:
- You are registered with the practice. We do not accept requests from temporary patients or patients who are not registered with the practice.
- You have selected an approved provider under Devon NHS Right to Choose (see link above)
- You have completed the provider’s referral pack/forms and sent these by email to the practice [email protected]
Please note that Right to Choose services are often in high demand, and waiting times can vary significantly. We recommend contacting the provider directly for details about their current waiting list.
The practice will send you a text to confirm we have submitted the referral.
If we have any query on your submission, we will email you and ask for you to resubmit. If this happens, we will not enter into a conversation about the matter as it will mean you have not followed the instruction above.
The reason for the rejection will be in the email. You must re-submit. The time to process the referral will start again ie 4 weeks from the new submission.
We have had no choice but to put this information in place as there has been a significant increase in workload around these referrals and a lot of confusion around what the practice is responsible for and what the patient is responsible for. This has resulted in unsubstantiated and often unpleasant complaints and further delays impacting on our other services.
Please help us by making sure you have read ALL the information above.
