Our Shared Care Policy

A Shared Care Agreement, also known as an SCA, is an arrangement between your GP and a specialist to provide you with ongoing treatment for a specific condition.

In the case of ADHD, this is usually:

• when a patient is diagnosed by an ADHD specialist clinician;
• stabilised on a specific medication by that clinician;
• but after a time has their repeat prescriptions for medication issued by their GP;
• while the specialist continues to have periodic reviews with the patients, and manage any complications that may arise.

The purpose is to allow the patient to access some aspects of their care – such as getting repeat prescriptions of their ADHD medication – more conveniently, while still being overseen by a specialist.

Shared Care Agreements are an NHS initiative, and usually both participating healthcare practitioners – specialist and GP – are NHS-based. But a similar agreement may be set up between a private and NHS practitioner.

No.

Private providers and specialists aren’t obligated to participate in shared care or abide by shared care protocols.

Similarly, GPs are not required to participate in shared care. For example, they may choose not to participate if they don’t feel competent enough in a particular specialist area to provide ongoing care to a patient. They may also choose not to participate if providing shared care to a particular patient isn’t practical given their practice population or existing workload, and may affect their care provision to other patients.

So a Shared Care Agreement can only be initiated with the consent of both the specialist and the GP.

Focused doesn’t offer or participate in shared care.

We are currently exploring a shared care feature, and hope to be able to offer it in the future.

In the meantime, you may be able to pursue shared care through your GP, but this may result in referral to NHS ADHD specialist services, and discontinuing the reception of care from Focused.

We will communicate with your GP to notify them about certain aspects of your care.

This includes informing them about:

• The outcome of your initial ADHD consultation
• Any new prescriptions for ADHD medication started
• Any changes to existing prescriptions
• The outcome of any follow-up clinical reviews
• Other significant events, such as a concern being raised, or your being discharged from Focused.

This is so that they can update your health records accordingly, and to share relevant information in the event that you wish to transfer your care from Focused to specialist NHS services.

For more information on the information we share with your GP, please refer to our privacy policy.