Your ADHD assessment and medication, start to finish

From the moment your GP decides to prescribe to the moment you hold your medication, we keep the process as direct as we can. This article describes exactly what happens at each step, so you know what to expect.

Step 1: You book and complete the questionnaire

When you book, we send you a link to our structured online assessment questionnaire. It takes most people thirty to forty minutes to complete. You can save and come back to it. The questionnaire is modelled on the DIVA-5 diagnostic interview and asks about current symptoms and the same symptoms as they appeared in your childhood. It also screens for conditions that can mimic or overlap with ADHD, including anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and autism.

You also upload any supporting documents you have: old school reports, previous assessments, letters from other clinicians. None of this is required, but it all adds to the picture.

Step 2: Your GP reviews your case before the appointment

Before your consultation, your named GP reads through your questionnaire responses and any documents you have uploaded. This preparation is built into the clinician's time; we do not cram the consultation with first-pass information-gathering that could have been done beforehand.

Overseeing our clinical governance is a consultant psychiatrist who reviews any case that the GP flags as complex before the consultation takes place. In practice this applies to roughly one in ten cases and ensures that complex presentations are picked up early.

Step 3: The consultation itself

Your assessment takes sixty minutes, whether you see us in person at Westfield or by video.

Whatever the format, the consultation has the same four elements. A discussion of the questionnaire answers, including anything that looks inconsistent and anything that looks clinically important. A conversation about your history and what has changed to bring you to us now. A discussion of what the clinician thinks is going on and whether ADHD is a reasonable conclusion. If it is, a conversation about medication options, what to expect, and which medication the clinician recommends for your starting point.

You leave the consultation with three things agreed: whether you meet criteria for ADHD, what happens next, and if medication is indicated, which one and at what starting dose.

Step 4: Your prescription is issued the same day

If you are prescribed, the clinician issues your private prescription during or immediately after the consultation.

From here, the two formats diverge in how the medication reaches you.

In-person at Westfield

At the end of your consultation, your GP dispenses the first month of your medication directly from the clinic. You walk out of Westfield with the medication in hand, the dispensing label attached, and written information about how to take it.

This is possible because UK medicines regulations permit a registered doctor to dispense to their own patients within the consultation episode. There is no second pharmacist consultation. There is no onward referral to a pharmacy chain. Your consultation and your first dispense are one continuous clinical event.

Online

If you booked by video, your GP issues the private prescription during the consultation. Your medication is dispensed by our doctors at Westfield and arranged for collection from the clinic or delivery where appropriate.

Where delivery is appropriate, we aim to get your medication to you as quickly as safely possible. There is no third-party pharmacy, no commercial boundary between the consultation and the dispense, and no additional pharmacy fee.

Step 5: Your written report arrives

Within five working days of your consultation, you receive a written diagnostic report by email. This contains the DIVA-5 findings criterion-by-criterion, a clinical summary, your starting medication and dose, and the plan for the next six to twelve weeks.

The report is designed to meet shared-care-request standards. If your NHS GP is willing to take over your prescribing under a shared care agreement, this report is the document they will need.

Step 6: Your first titration review

Two to four weeks after starting medication, your GP sees you again for a titration review. This is covered by your £79 a month care fee if you stay with us; your medication is billed separately. The review covers how you are tolerating the medication, what difference it is making to your attention and day-to-day function, whether the dose needs adjusting, and any side effects.

Most patients need two or three titration reviews over the first twelve weeks before settling on a stable dose.

What this looks like in a single week

For a patient who books Monday morning online: consultation Wednesday afternoon, prescription issued Wednesday, medication delivered Thursday morning, report emailed by the following Monday. Total elapsed time from booking to having medication in hand: three days.

For a patient who books for an in-person Westfield appointment: consultation completed, medication dispensed, and the patient walking out with it at the same visit. Report emailed within five working days.

The honest trade-off

This pace of treatment is only appropriate if the assessment has been done properly and the decision to prescribe is clinically sound. Our model depends on a well-structured pre-consultation questionnaire, a skilled clinician spending focused time on your case, and a consultant psychiatrist overseeing governance. Remove any of those and medication on the day becomes a corner being cut. In our set-up it is not.

Ready to start?

If this article has made you think it is time to find out, the next step is a short consultation with one of our ADHD-trained GPs.

Begin your assessment at this link. Assessment takes 60 minutes, in person or by video.