Medication is often part of the picture after an ADHD diagnosis, but the pathway from diagnosis to a stable prescription involves more steps — and more people — than many expect.
Where diagnosis and prescribing separate
A psychologist’s role — including mine — is the assessment and diagnosis: establishing whether ADHD is present, how it affects you, and what would help. Prescribing and titrating medication is a separate, distinct role carried out by a psychiatrist or another appropriately qualified prescriber. If medication looks appropriate following an assessment here, the next step is a referral to a prescriber for that part of the process.
What titration generally involves
Titration is the gradual process of finding the right medication and dose — starting low, reviewing effect and side effects, and adjusting over a series of appointments until a stable, effective dose is reached. It isn’t usually a single decision; it’s a monitored process that takes some weeks, led by the prescriber.
Getting back onto the NHS afterwards
Once medication is stable, a Shared Care Agreement between the prescriber and your GP can, where the GP agrees, move ongoing prescribing and monitoring onto the NHS, rather than that continuing privately indefinitely. This is something I help coordinate with patients’ GPs following diagnosis, where appropriate — more detail is in the Shared Care Agreement explainer. If you’re weighing up the full pathway before committing to an assessment, the assessment page covers what comes before this stage.
