Waiting for an autism or ADHD assessment: what you can actually do now

In England you have a legal right to choose which provider carries out an NHS assessment. It is called Right to Choose, and for autism and ADHD it is the single most useful thing on this page.

Your GP has to make the referral - you cannot refer yourself. The assessment is paid for by the NHS, so it costs you nothing. You may name any provider that accepts Right to Choose referrals and is commissioned by the NHS for that service.

Two honest caveats. It applies to the initial assessment, and you cannot use it if you are already on another waiting list for the same assessment - ask to come off the first list before joining another. And some Integrated Care Boards pause Right to Choose referrals when their budget runs out, so it is a door worth trying rather than a guaranteed one.

What to do: book a GP appointment, say you would like to be referred under Right to Choose, and bring the name of a provider you have already checked accepts it. Going in with the name saves a conversation your GP may not have had before.

This is the most common and most costly misunderstanding of the whole wait. The legal test is need, not diagnosis. A child can be on the SEN register and receiving support tomorrow with no letter from anyone.

It works through a cycle the school is meant to run - assess, plan, do, review - where they identify what your child struggles with, try something, and come back to see whether it worked. You are entitled to be part of each round.

What to do: ask the school SENCo for a meeting, in writing, and ask two questions. Is my child on the SEN register? And what is the current plan, and when do we review it? If the answer is that they are waiting for a diagnosis first, that is not the law, and you can say so politely and in an email.

If school-level support is not enough, you can ask the local authority for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment. You do not need a diagnosis to ask - and a local authority cannot lawfully refuse to assess solely because there is no diagnosis.

A diagnosis does not entitle a child to an EHCP, and the absence of one does not disqualify them. Both are decided on need.

What to do: you can request the assessment yourself, in writing, without going through the school. Keep a copy of the date you sent it.

DLA for children is not paid because of a label. It is paid because a child needs more care or supervision than a child of the same age who is not disabled. That is the test, and a diagnosis is not part of it.

What to do: keep a diary for a fortnight before you fill the form in - what help was needed, when, and for how long. The form asks about a typical day, and almost every parent under-reports, because the extra work has become normal. Write down what you actually do, not what you think counts.

The four things above are the practical answer. This part is the honest one.

The wait is not neutral. It is often two years in which a child is described in reports by what they find hard, and in which a parent starts to hear their own child as a list of difficulties. Nothing on this page shortens that, and we are not going to pretend a book does either.

What we would say is smaller. Your child does not need to be assessed to be understood, and they do not need a diagnosis to be the hero of something. Whatever else the waiting list is, it is not a verdict on who they are.