The UK Right to Choose pathway, demystified.
Heads up
This is a personal account of my own experience with the NHS Right to Choose pathway in England. It is not medical or legal advice. Please double check current provider lists with your GP.
Chapter 01What Right to Choose actually is
If you are an adult in England and your GP is happy to refer you for an ADHD assessment, you have a legal right to choose any provider in England that has an NHS contract. That is it. That is the whole trick. You are not queue jumping and you are not going private. You are using an existing NHS entitlement that almost nobody tells patients about.
The reason it matters is simple. Your local NHS trust probably has an ADHD waiting list somewhere between two and seven years long. A Right to Choose provider might see you within a few months.
The short version, step by step.
Step one. Book a GP appointment. Say you would like to be referred for an adult ADHD assessment under your Right to Choose. It can help to bring a short written summary of your symptoms and how they affect daily life.
Step two. Pick your provider before the appointment. Look up the current list of NHS-contracted adult ADHD Right to Choose providers. Check waiting times, whether they offer post-diagnostic support, and whether they can also handle shared care for medication.
Step three. Ask your GP to send the referral to that specific provider. If they are unsure, they can look up the NHS England guidance on Right to Choose. Most GPs are willing once they see it.
Chapter 02Things nobody warned me about
Not every GP practice is used to Right to Choose requests. If yours says no, you can politely ask them to check the current NHS England guidance, or ask to be seen by another GP in the practice.
Once you are diagnosed and, if appropriate, titrated onto medication, you will usually want your GP to move you onto a shared care agreement so you can get your prescriptions locally. Some GP practices refuse shared care, and you may need to stay on private prescriptions until you can find one that will. This is the part nobody talks about, and it is worth checking before you start.
The whole process is imperfect and, in places, quietly infuriating. But it is real, it is legal, and it exists because people before us fought for it. If you use it, you are not doing anything wrong. You are using the system exactly as it was designed.