A practice in the Blackpool area

2. Miss P complains that between 28 August and 6 September 2025 the Centre: • wrongly refused her request for an ECG for her safe commencement of ADHD treatment under private care • did not offer alternative solutions or guidance after refusing the ECG.

3. She also complains that the Centre Manager failed to demonstrate empathy or understanding, responding in a cold and dismissive manner to her complaint.

4. Miss P tells us that because the Centre refused to carry out the ECG, she was unable to start her ADHD treatment and was left without support. She says this made it harder to manage her condition, was deeply upsetting, and worsened her existing depression and anxiety. She explains that not having treatment in place affected her daily functioning and made it more difficult to care for her severely disabled child as a single parent. Miss P says she had to use private services to obtain the ECG, which placed a substantial financial burden on her. She adds that as the Centre provided no alternative solutions or guidance, she felt stressed, frustrated, and unsupported.

5. Miss P says that the Centre Manager’s response to her complaint left her feeling hurt, frustrated and disheartened. She explains that, given her existing mental health conditions, she found it very difficult to cope with how her concerns were handled. Miss P tells us that she no longer feels able to trust the Centre to provide appropriate care, and has now deregistered both herself and her child.

6. From her complaint, Miss P would like the Centre and the Centre Manager to acknowledge how poorly they treated her. She also seeks a financial remedy.

7. Miss P had several appointments with her GP between November and December 2024 due to her worsening mental health and ADHD symptoms. During those appointments her GP advised that the wait time for NHS ADHD assessments was 18 to 24 months.

8. During summer 2025, Miss P sought a private ADHD assessment. She told the private psychiatrist about a previous fainting episode, and they advised that an ECG was needed for the safe commencement of ADHD medication.

9. Miss P contacted the Centre several times between 28 August and 6 September 2025 to request an ECG. On 12 September, the Centre Manager responded and explained that arranging and interpreting the investigation was the responsibility of the specialist who is treating her to ensure safe treatment.

12. Before we decide if we should investigate a complaint in more detail, we look at a few different factors. We consider whether there are signs the organisation concerned has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. If what happened fell far short of what should have happened, we call this a failing.

13. In this case, we saw no indications of failings in either the refusal of the ECG or the handling of the complaint.

ECG refusal

14. Miss P believes that the Centre should have considered her specific circumstances and provided an ECG for her. She thinks that since the Centre refused the ECG it should have offered her alternative solutions or guidance.

15. The Centre told Miss P that it could not carry out pre‑treatment investigations, explaining that arranging and interpreting these tests is the responsibility of the specialist rather than primary care in line with Good Medical Practice.

16. The BMA guidance says that that complying with requests for tests or investigations from private providers is outside the scope of NHS primary medical services.

17. The Centre’s decision to refuse the ECG is consistent with BMA guidance, and it is entitled to take this position. The guidance is clear that arranging and interpreting these investigations is the responsibility of the specialist, not the NHS GP. This means the Centre had justified grounds to refuse the ECG.

18. The Centre suggested that she may wish to seek private ECG investigations instead. We recognise that the alternative suggested may not have been what Miss P had hoped for, but it did, correctly, signpost her back to the specialist, which was appropriate as per the BMA guidance. We do not, therefore, agree with her position that it did not offer an alternative solution or guidance.

Complaint handling

19. Miss P feels that the Centre Manager should have handled her complaint better. She said their response to her complaint left her feeling hurt, frustrated and disheartened.

20. We appreciate that a meaningful response is personal. While we have assessed the response against our NHS Complaint Standards, we remain mindful it may still have felt insufficient to Miss P. The Complaint Standards say that if the organisation found that the service provided was in line with what should have happened, it should reassure the person.

21. The Centre Manager responded to Miss P’s complaint by explaining what the Centre had considered, why the service provided was in line with relevant guidance, and reassuring her that the approach taken reflected standard clinical practice.

22. We do not agree with Miss P that the Centre Manager responded to her unempathetically. They acknowledged that nothing went wrong and reassured her that the Centre had considered her complaint in line with guidance.

23. Again, we recognise that neither the decision, nor the response were what Miss P had hoped for or expected. We hope our decision assures her that the Centre was acting in line with the applicable guidance.

1. We have carefully considered Miss P’s complaint about the Centre. We recognise that it has been difficult and costly for her to safely commence her ADHD treatment. Though inconvenient for her, the Centre was right to say that the ECG needed to be arranged by or through the provider who said it was needed. We were sorry to hear that Miss P felt that her complaint was treated poorly. Objectively, we think it was handled appropriately, however, we recognise that her experience is personal to her and she was left feeling disheartened. For these reasons, we have decided not to take any further action on the complaint.