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I read a 30 page white paper on the NHS right to choose and shared care policy in 2019 and I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to wait 1-2 years on an NHS waiting list to be diagnosed or to get treatment for something.
The first thing you should do is get a referral from your GP. Set an appointment, explain your symptoms and ask for a referral. This will usually be to a specialist consultant at a hospital. Your GP is a gatekeeper and a generalist their job is minimise unnecessary health costs.
If your GP doesn’t refer you. You have a right to seek a 2nd opinion from another GP. Make an appointment and repeat the process. Sometimes GPs in one area pool their resources to run an out of hours service. You can request to speak to them, any one of them can refer you too.
You can call 111 and speak to a doctor if your symptoms are urgent. They can refer you to a hospital too for urgent care bypassing your GP. Generally 111 can override whatever your GP says.
Once you have your referral for example if your doctor has agreed to send you for an ADHD assessment but the waiting time is 1 year plus - under the right to choose/ shared care policy you can choose a private provider that has a contract with the NHS with less waiting times.
Your GP will need to access a special funding pot set aside by your local CCG for cases like these and you can get assessed with a private provider but get your treatment (if you’ve been prescribed medicine) with your GP. This is called shared care.
If you have the $$$ you can always self refer and get a private diagnosis from a private GP and take this back to your NHS GP and they will have assume the prescription and monitoring of your condition. This is also called shared care.
At my last job - we used to send our patients for private health checks, anything we found we used send to their GP who would have to assume responsibility for their treatment and continuity of care after we discharged them from our service. You can mix & match private + nhs
It’s what the rich do. The only thing stopping us plebs is knowledge. There’s no difference between private and nhs care. Except waiting times and convenience and slightly better surroundings 
. The consultants are the same. They work in both NHS and private.
. The consultants are the same. They work in both NHS and private.
