any advice on 2nd opinons or assessment centre

[joshanddanfans]

anybody got any information on second opinions,or complaining about paeds treatment of parents and child anyone had second opinion done, what were the results? where, how? and has anyone gone private or been to an assessment centre for diagnosis, if so where?how much etc. any advice would be gratefully recieved, thanks, alex

[Brook]

Hi,

 

dont know if this would be any help??

 

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=255&a=3335

 

not sure if that's what you meant.

 

Brook

[KarenT]

We had a second opinion assessment carried out for our son, after dreadful treatment from the local hospital's Child and Family Psychiatry department. The first assessment was lax and judgemental, and seemed to be aimed at proving why he wasn't ASD rather than showing that he was. CAHMS especially were hugely patronising and no help whatsoever.

 

Because of the treatment we'd had and the lack of understanding from the team, we expected that we'd get no dx so researched in advance and found a local ASD expert, so we were prepared at the post-assessment meeting to ask for the second opinion referral to her. It turned out that the local team had an arrangement with the specialist unit to forward uncertain cases for second opinion anyway, so that's what happened. You are always entitled to a second opinion under the NHS, although you may have to wait. Ours took six months to come about.

 

The specialist clinic we went to wasn't private but an NHS facility in another area specifically for ASDs. We had a full-day assessment there and were given the dx at the end of the day. However, the downside was that the clinic's arrangement with the local hospital is such that they can't offer any support or therapeutic work, only the diagnositic facility, so I guess we'll be sent back to the original team. As the dx was only given in July this year and nothing practical could be done over the school holidays, we're still waiting for final reports to be sent to all concerned so I still don't know what will happen there.

 

A friend (who sometimes posts on here) had an assessment done privately for her son this year, with the outcome of a definite dx of AS. That was in Sheffield and it was done over two days. Can't remember the cost or where exactly.

 

We didn't actually complain formally about the local hospital team, although I know that we should have. There was so much going on with J at the time that we didn't have time to do anything about it, and the complaints procedure can be very time-consuming once you've started it off.

 

Good luck.

 

Karen

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