‘You’and ‘your’ refers to the person engaging our service(s) or, in the case of achild under the age of 16, the parent or guardian of the child.
‘We’and ‘us’ refers to the National Diagnosis and Assessment Service for Autism(NDAS).
1. You have contracted with us to carry out an autism assessment of yourself or your child.
2. The assessments carried out by NDAS are for autism spectrum disorder. We do not carry out formal assessments for other conditions. However, if we find sufficient evidence to suggest that other assessments may be helpful, we will discuss that with you.
3. A referral to NDAS is a referral to our clinical team. Any member of the team maybe involved in discussion of your assessment and not just the team members whomeet you to carry out the direct assessment.
4. We will not discuss your or your child’s personal details with any party without your permission.
5. With your permission we will routinely obtain information from other sources such as GP records or school personnel.
6. If safeguarding concerns in relation to you or your child arise in the process of assessment, we have a legal duty and a professional duty of care to notify these to the appropriate agencies.
7. The assessment fee must be paid by BACS transfer a minimum of one week prior to the assessment taking place.
8. Any cancellation of an appointment must be notified to us at least three working days prior to the confirmed appointment.
9. A cancellation fee of one half of the full fee will be charged by us for cancellations made less than three working days before the confirmed appointment.
10. Without prejudice to clause 8 above, we will take all reasonable steps to avoid levying the cancellation fee. When your appointment is made an appropriate clinical team gets engaged to be present for your assessment. If we are able to fill your appointed slot there will be no cancellation fee. Alternatively, we may still seek to accommodate your assessment as best we can at a rescheduled time.We will seek to take reasonable account of unavoidable circumstances leading to a cancellation.
11. Non-attendance at your appointment will be treated as a cancellation with less than three working days.
12. If we have to cancel your appointment owing to unavoidable circumstances we willoffer you an alternative appointment at a time convenient to you.
13. We will provide you with a written diagnostic report on your assessment. We will normally aim to send this to you within four weeks.
14. In the case of a child under 16, the report will be sent to the referring parent.
15. In the case of young persons over 16 or adults who are referred or funded by their parents, a copy of the report will be sent both to the parent and to the individual being assessed.
16. If you consider that your report contains inaccurate or inappropriate information, you may ask us to review its contents. We will seek to accommodate all reasonable adjustments to reports.
17. A diagnosis or non-diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is a matter of clinical judgement by our team. If you disagree with having received or not having received a diagnosis, we reserve the right not to engage in any further consideration of the assessment process. In exceptional cases – for example, where significant new assessment records or other information has become available after the assessment, we may at our own discretion review your assessment.
18. We always aim to conclude your assessment at the end of the appointment and to provide you with verbal feedback at that stage. In exceptional cases we may ask you to attend for a further appointment, and in the case of young children we may propose that we review our assessment after a certain period. No further fee will be levied in these circumstances.