ADHD Assessment Appointment

An ADHD assessment appointment takes place after a screening appointment. You will have been given feedback whether proceeding to an assessment appointment will be a worthwhile process. We do not want you to spend money unnecessarily if you won’t benefit from an assessment.

What happens at an ADHD assessment?

The assessment process is in-depth and will be 7-10 hours work for a clinician when it is completed according to NICE guidelines (which is the NHS standard). We need to see you in person for an assessment, collect information about you now (and in the past) from others who know you, then write a detailed report of your life, before inviting you back 2-3 weeks after your assessment to discuss the outcome of the assessment with you. 

We assess according to NICE guidelines and will provide a sufficiently detailed report that you can forward onto NHS services to validate. We do not diagnose according to rating scales and questionnaires – our assessment consists of a full clinical and psychosocial assessment:

• A full medical and developmental history - This includes gathering information about prenatal and perinatal factors, developmental milestones, and any existing medical conditions or medications. Understanding the broader context allows clinicians to rule out alternative explanations for the observed symptoms.

• A thorough clinical interview where you are encouraged to share their experiences, challenges, and concerns related to attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity to gather valuable information about the your symptoms and their impact on daily life.

• A full psychiatric history and mental state examination.

• Our observations and those of others to provide valuable insights into you behaviour and functioning. This offers a real-world perspective on how ADHD impacts daily life.

We then invite you back in 2-3 weeks' time to discuss the outcome of the assessment with you.