GP's Reaction to me asking for a referral...

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The situation may be changing though in some respects here in the UK in the mid-term at least. As the autism act 2009 is eventually going to come into force. The statutory guidane for local authorities was released just before xmas. If you want to have a read of what it says your local authorities will have to do.

The only problem I have with this (shared by other professionals) the language is far too wishy washy. It suggests it doesn't demand. It leaves it up to each council, borough, county, trust how it goes about doing things.

Department of health link below to document

Statutory Guidance Link

For those of you that can't be arsed heres a quick summary copy n pasted.

I think it will be similair in some respects to the Disability Discrimination Act. A foot in the door but its still going to take people to actually hold local authorities and services to account for it to actually have any power and/or benefit.

The post code lottery is basically going to come down too what kind of local groups (parent, asperger, voluntary etc) exist in your local area that are able to lobby and hold the executive to account on what they deliver.

Theres going to be a conferance later on this month in London about implementing the autism act. It will be interesting to compare and contrast which areas are ahead and which are really far behind.

I suspect a lot of the London Boroughs are going to be caught with their pants down

Thanks for posting that. I've been out of the UK for the last couple of years and didn't know about this particular Act of Parliament. I've pulled it up and am going to read it properly when I have more time. A quick look at it makes me believe it's what is called an enabling Act. It isn't supposed to set out the law regarding it's subject but to set out a framework for future law, which won't have to go through Parliament. It's basically an Act to devolve power.

I am certainly aware of people in some local authorities in the UK that are receiving services on the basis of aspergers and who are adults.

You are all aware well and truley that in the UK it all depends entirely on where you live, as well as what type of support you want and need. Some local authorities are great and others are s**t. To say that things are appauling all over the UK simply does not add up to anyone anywhere and even the NAS would say that. They themselves say that it depdends entirely on where you live and the same is true for children needing specail educational services and the like. Sure they have a mandated responsiblity to provide support, but what that is differs from place to place. Some put a kid in a classroom with an hour of aide time a week and the same kid in a different area provides them with a place in a special autism school at a cost of in excess of !00,000 per year. It is like many places in the world the lottery game.

As for accesing psychology services that is not something I know about. The person I have communicated with needed help to live at home due to sensory issues. Whether the local authority pays for psychology or not I do not know. In Australia we get no psychology services for autism as adults or aspergers as adults. IF you have a mental illness you can get a referral from a GP to a pscyhologist for up to 12 sessions each calander year. Disability services will provide day to day support services, attendent care, help with food preperation, cleaning, etc, but for those that want psychological support, well that is deemed a mental health and the so called health system is responsible for that. And yes most GP's here are told that everyone needs to be on antidepressents first. That has nothing to do with a lack of services to people on the spectrum, that has more to do with the lies and crap that pharmaceuitcal companies have managed to pull about their magic pills.

The pharmacuetical companies make out that these are lifestyle pills that they actually do a specific thing and fix a specific condition, when the fact is they do not. If you give a guy viagra they get an errection, if you take an antibiotic you get rid of bacterail infections. The problem is at most these medications have a very small percentage of people and they certainly do not make them happy. They claim they cure social phobia, anxiety, etc, etc, etc. The fact is everyone buys the crap they buy and the mental health systems throughout the world and run by these people. There is and never has been any evidence of serotinon levels being low in people with depression and the latest antidepressents are actually not serotinon but melotonin, so how they intend to explain that away is beyond me.

Sure services suck everywhere, and we all know that

Oh, I'm looking for (and already receive) payments for my disabilities. This doesn't mean I see the glass as half empty, and I admit I get kind of tired about assumptions regarding people who try to get disability benefits. For some they might be a nice thing to have, and for others they might be survival.

I never said there was anything wrong with seeking a diagnosis. If it is important then do it, but if it is going to cause you to risk your life over it, then I for one would not be bothered. I have been misdiagnosed with things in the past, I do know what that is like and while I accepted the treatment for a while it did not feel right and so I did not continue with it. I am a person and maybe that is just me that if a doctor says I have something I want some proof for that, and I do not believe that any doctor can diagnose anything with a pen and paper sitting 4 foot away from me and this is exactly how mental illnesses are diagnosed. I do have mental illnesses, but I want the symptoms to fit and I want some reason as to why I am being give this diagnosis, not just because I said so. And I want benefit from the treatment. If the treatment makes me feel like s**t, well I sure as hell am not going to continue to take it. It never ceases to amaze me how many people say I took these pills for decades they made me feel like s**t, never did anything at all for me, but the doctor said I had to. I for one would tell the doctor where to go. That is not possible if you are on forced treatment orders, but the vast majority are not. No it is not always easy to get a second opinion, but you still do not have to accept treatment that makes you feel like s**t.

I also never said there was anything wrong with getting benefits. What I did say was that I do not believe that anyone gains from sitting at home and doing nothing for life and from what I see, hear and experience, the vast majority of people on disability benefits do that. They are incredibly isolated, rarely if ever walk out the front door and are not being introduced to other services that could possibly help them. I also stated, which is correct that a diagnosis alone will not get you any benefits at all, it is going to be on the disabling aspects of that condition or any condition for that matter. Disability benefits are paid on the symptoms and what has been done to try to allevaite those symptoms. There are people on this forum that have posted questions asking what benefits they can get if and when they get diagnosed, even though they have been working for the last 30 years, are married, have children, etc. When it was pointed out to them, and not by me, that you actually had to be disabled by the condition they wanted to know why?

And do not for one second tell me about hardship. I was raped by my parents as a way to "cure" my autism. I was beaten black and blue and left for dead, way too many times. I ended up on the streets and in a refuge at the age of 16. I have had to work bloody darm hard to get where I am, and I have done it all alone. It has only been in the last 12 months that I have had any support at all. I was refused access to many refuges, because of the autism and because I was not verbal. Disability services at the time did not consider autism to be a disability, it was classified as a mental illness and so they refused to help me and mental health services would not help as I was not a risk to myself or others. To this day I have ver few people who even know if I am alive or dead and all of them are paid. So yeah, I know what hardship is, more than any of you will ever know. My parents have never been charged, after all I was just a deranged child and if you had a child like that you would do the same. I never got one cent of crimes compensation as you cannot hurt someone that has autism they do not have feelings, and I was not entitled to any counselling services as my autism meant they did not know how to deal with me. I have permanent phsyical injuries as a result of the abuse and severe PTSD, but I get no help at all with any of them. And yes I do my best to try and stay positive and make the most of the s**t existence that I was born with. Do not tell me how hard your life is, you would not know it if your life depended on it. I have never had and nor will I ever have anyone ever say the words to me "I love you". I will never ever know what it is like to be loved, I will never know what it is like to have a friend, to sleep through the night without nightmares or constant pain because of the injuries I still bare. And you tell me that my life has been privilleged. Thanks, but I think I will take any of your lives any day of the week.

You appear to be contradicting yourself a bit now and getting slightly confused so I think I'll just leave you and your anger to argue amongst yourself.

Tiffinity.