What Right to Choose costs you

The assessment is paid for by the NHS. What remains is the prescription charge at the counter, and the cost of the route you take if this pathway is closed to you.

The short version

NHS West and North London ICB describes the pathway as providers, NHS and private, paid for by the NHS.
The National Health Service sets a single prescription charge of £9.90 per item in England, checked on 15 September 2026.
There is no published national price for what the NHS pays a provider, and this site does not state one.
If a provider asks you for a fee, it is describing its private service, which is a different arrangement.

The money answer on this pathway is short enough to be suspicious of, so it is worth pinning down exactly what is free, what is not, and what simply has no published number.

The assessment

NHS West and North London ICB describes Right to Choose as access to a wider range of provider organisations, NHS and private, paid for by the NHS. The provider invoices the commissioner. There is no co-payment, no gap fee and no premium tier.

If a provider quotes you a price for an assessment, what it is quoting is its private service. That is a legitimate thing to buy and a different thing entirely, with different consequences for what happens afterwards.

What has no published price

What the NHS pays a provider for an ADHD assessment is set inside commissioning contracts and is not published nationally. This site does not state a figure for it, and any figure you see quoted for it should be traced before it is believed.

Private assessment prices are likewise set clinic by clinic and vary with what the price includes. A single national average printed here would be the most quotable sentence on the page and the least reliable, so it is not printed.

What you do pay

The National Health Service sets a single prescription charge of £9.90 per item in England, checked on 15 September 2026, and that fee applies for each item rather than for each prescription. In the NHS's own example, if your prescription has 3 medicines on it you will have to pay the prescription charge 3 times.

If you are exempt from prescription charges, that cost does not arise. If you are not, and you expect a monthly ADHD prescription, a prepayment certificate is usually the cheaper route.

NHS prescription charge in England

£9.90

per item, unless you are exempt

National Health Service, NHS prescription charges. Checked 15 September 2026. The assessment itself is paid for by the NHS under this pathway.

The cost that arrives later

The expensive scenario is not the assessment. It is a diagnosis with no durable prescribing arrangement behind it. NHS South West London ICB warns that if your provider stops offering annual reviews, you will need a new assessment with a new provider, and that either way you will go on a waiting list.

That is the cost worth pricing before you choose a provider, and it is measured in time rather than in pounds.

Questions people ask about this

Is an ADHD assessment free under Right to Choose?

The assessment is paid for by the NHS. NHS West and North London ICB describes the pathway as access to a wider range of provider organisations, NHS and private, paid for by the NHS. What you may still pay is the ordinary English prescription charge if you are prescribed medication and are not exempt.

How much does the NHS pay a Right to Choose provider?

There is no published national price. The amount sits inside commissioning contracts between integrated care boards and providers and is not something a patient can look up, so this site states no figure for it.