| Online Initial Consultation 1 Hour | £350 |
|---|---|
| Online/Telephone Follow-up Consultation (15 minutes) | £100 |
| Face to Face Initial Consultation (1 hour depending on location) | £350 – £395 |
| Face to Face Follow-up Consultation (30 minutes to 1 hour depending on location) | £175 – £325 |
| Repeat Prescription | £30 |
I’m simply not going to spend that kind of money on depression therapy if it’s going to be the same kind of thing the NHS has previously offered me. The various therapies did their bit in the short term, but soon, I’m back where I was before. Put simply, I am not going to spend money I haven’t actually got in the near certain knowledge it wouldn’t work and it would be money wasted. I suspect that during privately funded treatment, I’d be fretting so much about the cost that I might get even worse. So it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to spend north of two and nearer to three weeks wages for nothing. That, from the point of view of treatment for my severe clinical depression is over. It’s up to me now. The ADHD bit is even worse.
I wrote to a private practitioner whose reply made things even more confusing. It went along the lines of this: if I was diagnosed with ADHD, would I want prescribed medication? If I did, it would need to be prescribed by a specialist psychiatrist, who “may want to carry out their own assessment”. Then came the magic words: “I cannot recommend anyone in particular.”
My first thoughts were these. I have no idea whether I’d want, or need, to be prescribed more drugs? Given my GP has already said I’m on the maximum dosage for my depression, could they prescribe still more? And if an expert in the field can’t recommend anyone in particular, how on earth could a non-expert like me find one who was affordable and any good?
As things stand, I am inclined to not bother to pursue the private route and just struggle along the NHS waiting list in the hope that I might get a specialist appointment before I die, or simply go mad, whichever comes first.
If I ever doubted the disdain the government has for mental health services I certainly wouldn’t now.
I don’t have the mental strength to navigate an alien system, alone or with the support of family and friends.
It seems to me that the mental health side of the NHS has been set up to fail and in that sense the plan is succeeding admirably. The rest of the NHS will soon follow and then everyone can share in the misery mental people like me have put up with for many years, in my case most of a lifetime.
