Private ADHD assessment for adults

Absolutely. ADHD symptoms usually start before the age of 12, but some people are not diagnosed until adulthood. The diagnostic criteria (DSM-5 and ICD-11) look for symptoms that were present before age 12, though ICD-11 notes that some people “may first come to clinical attention later in adolescence or as adults”. NICE says symptoms “should be evident in early life, if only in retrospect”, and does not recommend ruling someone out because the time symptoms began is uncertain.

An adult assessment typically includes a detailed clinical interview, standardised rating scales, developmental history (sometimes with input from a family member who knew you as a child), and screening for other conditions. Appointments commonly run from about 1.5 to 3 hours, though clinics vary: check the clinic’s own figure.

It can help. The NHS says the specialist will ask about the history of your symptoms, particularly if they started when you were a child, and may want to contact someone who knows you well, such as a family member or close friend. The World Health Organization’s clinical descriptions for ICD-11 call a history of symptoms before age 12 “an important corroborating feature” in adults, one that “can be best established from school or local records, or from informants who knew the individual during childhood”. They say that without such information a diagnosis in older adolescents and adults “should be made with caution”. NICE does not recommend ruling someone out because the time symptoms began is uncertain.

31 of these clinics accept NHS Right to Choose referrals for adults. If you are registered with a GP in England, your GP can refer you to an approved provider with the NHS funding the assessment. Some local NHS areas now limit the number of Right to Choose assessments they fund and have set minimum waits, so an NHS-funded wait can be much longer than the private wait shown for a clinic. Before your GP refers you, ask the clinic whether it is taking Right to Choose referrals from your area and what its wait is.

Treatment can include medication (both stimulant and non-stimulant options) and talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). 151 clinics will write to your GP asking for a shared care agreement for ongoing prescriptions. Whether to agree is your GP practice's decision.

You can share your diagnostic report with your GP. A report from a psychiatrist or specialist clinician at a properly regulated clinic (registered with the CQC in England, or HIS, HIW or RQIA in the devolved nations) will set out the assessment and its recommendations. Whether your GP then takes over prescribing is a separate decision: a GP is not obliged to enter a shared care agreement, and in the evidence summary (updated June 2025) in Part 2 of its report, the ADHD Taskforce that NHS England commissioned says data “suggest that support for GPs to prescribe ADHD medication is patchy”.