Right to Choose (ADHD referrals)
What is Right to Choose (ADHD)
If you are referred to a consultant or specialist doctor, you have the legal right to choose your provider, if you are registered with a GP in England.
- You must be registered with a GP surgery in England.
Right to Choose (RTC) is not currently available in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. If you move out of England during your treatment, you will no longer be eligible for RTC. - The organisation you choose must be a ‘qualified provider’.
Psychiatry UK has NHS contracts to provide adult ADHD and autism diagnosis and treatment services with a number of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England, and therefore meets the RTC criteria. - We cannot provide ADHD assessments for children under the age of 18 under RTC.
If your GP feels a referral is appropriate and will make a referral to us, we can arrange for your treatment to be paid for by the NHS under the Right to Choose legislation.
How to apply for Right to Choose (ADHD)
1. Make an appointment with your GP
The first step is to discuss your symptoms with your GP.
If they agree that you may have ADHD and that you need to be assessed, you have the legal right to choose an appropriate provider and can ask to be referred to Psychiatry UK under Right to Choose (RTC).
The referral should be sent to us directly by your GP (you cannot self-refer under RTC).
2. What to take to your appointment
It can be helpful to take a covering letter addressed to your GP and a completed ASRS (ADHD Self-Report Scale) form to help confirm whether your symptoms are consistent with a possible ADHD diagnosis.
- Download and complete this ASRS form
- Download and amend this letter
Fill in your details where indicated (this should include your email address and phone number) and address it to your GP.
3. How will I know if Psychiatry UK has received my referral?
It can take several weeks to process your referral. Once accepted, we will contact you via SMS and/or email with instructions to help you set up an account on our MedQare portal.
When you are logged in, you will find a welcome note letting you know what will happen next.
If you have not heard from us within 6 weeks, please check with your GP surgery:
- The date your GP sent your referral.
- That your referral has not been returned to your surgery as incomplete, or has not been accepted.
- If your referral has not been returned to your GP and you have not heard from us after 6 weeks, please contact us using our live web chat service (our opening hours are: Mon-Fri: 8am-6pm).
1. What information should a referral contain?
Before making a referral to Psychiatry UK, please check with your patient that an online service is suitable for their needs.
A referral MUST contain the following 3 items, or it may be rejected:
1. A short covering letter stating that you (the GP) wish to refer this patient to Psychiatry UK for an ADHD assessment under NHS Right to Choose legislation.
Please give a brief explanation for referral. Your letter should be addressed to Psychiatry UK and must have your name (as the patient’s GP) at the bottom (not ANP or other).
Please also include the patient’s telephone number and email address as these are our primary methods of contact.
2. A brief medical summary of the patient.
3. The patient’s completed ASRS form.
2. Where to send the referral
The referral (including attachments) should be sent to: p-uk.RTC-referrals@nhs.net
Please note that this mailbox is FOR GP REFERRALS ONLY.
This mailbox is solely for clinical use. Patient queries will not receive a response.
Existing patients, please reach out via your MedQare portal account. For further assistance, contact our support team through our live web chat service.
Alternatively, postal referrals can be sent to:
Psychiatry UK,
3b Fore Street,
Camelford,
Cornwall,
PL32 9PG.
Are we the right provider for you?
Psychiatry UK is a fully online company, and our services may not be suitable for all patients.
Online vs in person – what’s the difference?
Whereas traditional in-person care is provided directly by a mental health specialist in a local clinic or surgery, an online (or ‘telepsychiatry’) service uses technology such as a computer, phone or tablet to deliver care remotely. This means that:
- We will communicate with you via our MedQare patient portal.
- Your assessment will take place via a secure Teams call with your doctor.
- If you are referred to our Titration Service for medication treatment, this will also take place online.
Frequently Asked Questions
Psychiatry UK is a fully online company, and our services may not be suitable for all patients.
Whereas traditional in-person care is provided directly by a mental health specialist in a local clinic or surgery, an online (or ‘telepsychiatry’) service uses technology such as a computer, phone or tablet to deliver care remotely.
This means that:
- We will communicate with you via our MedQare patient portal
- Your assessment will take place via a secure Teams call with your doctor
- If you are referred to our titration team for medication treatment, this will also take place online
- Access to the internet
- A mobile phone to receive SMS texts for 2FA (two-factor authentication) to access our MedQare portal
We continue to experience unprecedented demand for referrals for both our adult ADHD and autism services, which has inevitably created waiting lists for assessment and treatment.
We are unable to give precise waiting times because the time you will need to wait for an assessment can change frequently due to multiple factors. Our customer service team will not be able to give any more information on wait times through our web chat service or support line. Please wait to be contacted by us.
If you are already registered with us, we will contact you by email and portal note to arrange the appointment, so please keep looking out for Psychiatry UK emails and check your portal regularly for messages.
At present we can only see adults under Right to Choose according to the terms of our contracts. We do, of course, have child and adolescent specialists available on a private basis.
Children can very often be diagnosed through the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) via school referral.
To apply for ADHD referral and treatment under Right to Choose, you must be referred by your GP. Please note: We do not currently offer private ADHD assessment.
Assuming that your GP is refusing to refer you due to funding concerns and not a clinical reason, you can ask them to read the NHS information governing patient choice. Common causes of confusion are the fact that we are not commissioned in your ICB, which is not relevant, or that the GP is only aware of applying through an IFR (Individual Funding Request) and asking the ICB for permission first, which again, is not necessary.
Your GP does not need to get prior approval for your referral from the local Integrated Care Board (ICB) and we do not need to seek their approval before starting your treatment.
Once we receive the referral from your GP, we will contact you and ask you to complete some further questionnaires. We will then arrange an appointment for you to be assessed by one of our ADHD specialist doctors and commence treatment if indicated.
A patient’s legal right to choose a provider covers all aspects of healthcare. However, you can only choose an eligible provider that has an NHS contract for the service you require. At present, Psychiatry UK is only commissioned for Adult ADHD and Adult Autism assessments.
Your assessment is covered and any medication treatment.
Although we are planning to offer alternative treatments such as coaching and therapy in the future, we currently provide medication treatment only.
If you already have an ADHD diagnosis and are seeking treatment with Psychiatry UK under the Right to Choose scheme, we will need a referral from your GP for your ongoing care.
- You will need an assessment appointment with one of our doctors to review your diagnosis, the difficulties you are experiencing and any previous treatment.
- If you are undergoing medication changes with another service, we would not be able to accept a referral until you are on a stable treatment, or until the treatment has ended.
If you move out of England while you are on our waiting list or during treatment, you will no longer be eligible for Right to Choose. You will need to be referred to a local ADHD service, or we could continue your treatment on a private basis.
No. The Right to Choose rules cannot be used to swap provider mid-treatment. If you are unhappy with your existing care, you will need to reach a resolution with your current provider.
No. We can only invoice the ICB from the date of the referral. You can get a referral from your GP to cover the cost of treatment following a diagnosis made privately, however.
We are not able to provide second opinion assessments under Right to Choose, unless you paid for the first assessment privately.