How do I get a private ADHD diagnosis recognised by the NHS?

Ask your GP to accept your child’s private report into a shared-care agreement for medication. GPs can decline this (many do in 2026), so also request an NHS re-referral as backup. “Recognised by the NHS” is not one thing: it splits three ways, and a flat “no” on one of them does not cancel the others.

What “recognised” actually means (three separate things)

• For NHS-funded medication: your GP voluntarily takes over prescribing under a shared-care agreement. This is a clinical decision the GP can decline.
• For the NHS specialist service: where medication is involved, the local NHS team will often run its own review rather than simply adopt the private diagnosis.
• For school and an EHCP: a private diagnosis from a properly registered clinician already carries the same legal weight as an NHS one. No NHS sign-off is needed here.

So you can be told “no” on shared-care prescribing while the very same report fully counts for your child’s school support. Keep those two outcomes apart in your head.

The steps, in order

1. Get the private report in writing and check it names a GMC-registered specialist (a psychiatrist or paediatrician with ADHD expertise), follows NICE guidance NG87, and records that the dose has been titrated and stabilised. A GP is far more likely to accept a report that ticks these boxes.
2. Take it to your GP and ask them to enter a shared-care agreement so medication can be prescribed and monitored on the NHS.
3. At the same time, ask your GP to make an NHS re-referral to the local neurodevelopmental service. This is your backup if shared care is declined, and it keeps the NHS route open.
4. Give the report to your child’s school or SENCO straight away for SEN Support and any EHCP application. This step does not depend on the GP’s decision.

What the timeline and the GP’s discretion look like

There is no fixed statutory window here, which is the hard part. A GP is under no legal obligation to prescribe on a private specialist’s recommendation alone, or to enter shared care. The NHS principle is that you should be neither advantaged nor disadvantaged for going private, and you can move from private to NHS care at any stage, but you are then treated under NHS protocols. Where medication has been started privately, the NHS service may need to gather more information and meet your child before it takes over prescribing, for duty-of-care reasons. If no medication is needed, your child can simply be moved across without a fresh assessment.

If the GP says no

Ask for the refusal reasons in writing. The common ones are gaps in the report, questions about the clinician’s credentials, or local Integrated Care Board (the NHS bodies that fund prescribing) policy. Knowing the reason tells you whether to supply more evidence, ask a different GP in the practice, or rely on the NHS re-referral. A prescribing refusal does not stop the school from supporting your child: under the SEND Code of Practice 2015 schools and councils must act on identified need, and your private diagnosis is valid evidence for SEN Support and an EHC needs assessment.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.