The assessment for ADHD is in two parts. Firstly, we will talk to you about the challenges you are experiencing, as well as asking questions about your childhood, education, family life and general physical and mental health. The second part of the assessment looks at your symptoms and how they impact on your life including education, work, relationships and hobbies.
There will be some forms to complete online prior to your assessment. This gives us some information about your current challenges and allows us to use our assessment time more effectively. You don’t have to fill in the forms all at once and can complete these in smaller chunks if this is easier.
We usually ask for information from someone who knows you well, an ‘informant’. Ideally, this would be someone who has known you since childhood. If this isn’t possible, we can speak to someone who knows you well, which could be a partner, friend, work colleague or a professional who works with you (social worker, healthcare professional, or worker from a support organisation). If you’re not sure who can provide this information, please let us know and we will do our best to help you.
For most children and young people and some adults, we will also ask you to do a ‘Qb’ test. This involves completing a simple computer-based task, while wearing a flexible band around your head that tracks movement. This provides us with a report that can be used as part of your assessment.
We want to make sure that a diagnosis of ADHD is accurate and meets NICE guidelines to provide a high standard of care. This means we will discuss all the assessment information with the multi-disciplinary team (MDT), a team of healthcare professionals with different expertise, before we give you a diagnosis. This also allows us to consider what support we can offer.
After the MDT meeting, we will be able to tell you your diagnosis, and the reasons why. Remember a negative diagnosis is still a diagnosis. We can also tell you more about the support available from The Aspen Clinic and other organisations. The MDT meetings are weekly, so we won’t keep you waiting long for an outcome. We will then send a report out to you by email or post. With your permission, we can also share this with your GP.
