Booking and Appointments
1. Once we receive a referral or enquiry, we aim to get back to you by the end of the next working day. The best way to reach us for the initial and all subsequent communication is via emailing us at umid@umid.co.uk. This email address is monitored daily on working days. You can also contact us via the web enquiry form and our phone number, 01962 435 090 (10 am to 2pm), and leave a voicemail if we cannot take your call.
2. We offer both online and in-person appointments except for Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment and ADOS-2 appointments as part of autism assessment for children, which must be face to face.
3. For all psychological and occupational therapy services, we can only accept self-paying referrals and cannot take Private Medical Insurance. However, some of our patients tell us that they have been able to self-pay and claim back part or all the cost from their PMI provider. Please ask your insurance company whether you can do so.
4. Once an appointment is agreed upon, we will email you an Initial Consultation Form to complete and return to us. The form includes essential personal and clinical details for registration on Carebit, our electronic records system. The system then confirms the booking of the appointment and generates an invoice.
5. For most appointments, we will send you additional clinical questionnaires to be completed and returned to us electronically either before or after the appointment. We may also request a summary of your GP records if needed and may ask you to sign a consent form for us to be able to do so.
6. A video link will be sent to you along with the booking confirmation for online appointments.
7. Please let us know before booking if you have any mobility issues or other special needs.
8. We must share the assessment outcome with your GP and will not be able to offer a service should you wish for your GP not to be informed.
9. We can offer various support interventions via planned appointments. However, we are not the right service in case of a crisis or where the needs of care are more intensive, requiring regular support outside planned appointments and where there are concerns about the safety and well-being of the individual and/or people around them.
Payment Terms
1. All payments are due within one week of the receipt of the invoice for initial bookings and 48 hours before the follow up appointments. Our system will cancel the bookings if payment is not recorded at least 48 hours before the appointment.
2. Please note that any appointments not attended or cancelled at less than 48 hour notice will be charged at full rates.
3. We offer a private mental health service which NHS does not fund, even if your NHS GP makes the referral. These referrals are treated as referrals for private care, and we cannot claim the cost from NHS.
4. Our fees for different services are noted in the “Our Fees” section of the website.
Assessment and Follow Letters
1. We will send you a copy of the assessment report sent to your GP or the referrer. Our standard times are one to two weeks for Psychiatric and Therapy assessments and 2-4 weeks for ADHD and Autism assessments. These may be subject to change in case of illness, annual leave, or other unforeseen circumstances.
2. The appointment letters are meant to summarise the key points of the discussion and the agreed treatment plan and outline our clinical opinion for the referrer and yourself. It is not a comprehensive report intended for medico-legal or your employer. However, it is up to you to see whether it is appropriate for you to share this letter with other professionals, family members or external agencies at your discretion.
3. The objective of the psychiatric assessment is to assess the nature of difficulties and agree on a shared treatment plan which meets your needs. If you have a specific request such as a second opinion on a particular diagnosis or treatment plan, medico-legal or occupational health issue or report for an external agency, please let us know at the time of the initial enquiry as this may require additional information and review of records before the appointment (which may affect the cost), or it may be the case that the service is not able to meet these needs. Any additional correspondence required, such as referrals or letters for agencies other than the standard clinical letter to you and the GP, would incur additional administrative charges, as noted in the Fees section. These are at the Psychiatrist’s discretion but would not exceed 60 pounds per ten minutes of the additional administrative work involved.
4. The clinical opinions offered by the service regarding issues such as diagnosis represent the professionals' expertise. The service will not be able to change professional opinions to accommodate a preferred diagnosis or make any amendments to the content of the report unless there are factual errors. Any assessments for a particular condition, such as Autism and ADHD, may or may not mean that the professional opinion is consistent with your impressions before the appointment.
5. Any questionnaires completed are part of the assessment process but do not determine the outcome of the assessment. Once questionnaires have been looked at as part of the assessment, they are not kept as part of the records and it is not possible to provide copies of the questionnaires later on your request. A summary of questionnaire outcomes may be included in the letter sent to you.
Ongoing Care
1. The service offers planned outpatient appointments only on specific days of the week. Our clinicians cannot offer urgent or email clinical support except concerning administrative issues. You can contact us to bring your appointment forward if needed. Should emergency and crisis support be required, please liaise with your GP or nearest A&E or call paramedics/police depending upon the situation’s urgency.
2. For a small number of patients, their needs may change over time, and they may require more intensive care than we are able to offer, or we may no longer be the right service for them even if they would like to continue with our support. In this case, we will share our recommendations with you and may signpost you to other appropriate avenues of support.
3. We aim to be a paper-free service, and all our communication is electronic, primarily via our secure electronic records system.
Prescriptions
1. A private prescription issued as part of your psychiatric appointment is free of cost. As noted in the Fees section, a private prescription issued between appointments will incur additional charges. Please note that the pharmacy will charge you for dispensing a private prescription, depending upon the cost of the medication.
2. Please note that as per service policy, we must either offer you regular review appointments or discharge you back to your GP when regular appointments are no longer required and close the episode of care. You, your GP, or other professionals can refer you again and request an appointment if needed in the future. This will be treated as a new episode of care with us.
3. All controlled drug prescriptions are posted via tracked delivery in keeping with controlled drug regulations.
4. Any lost or misplaced prescriptions for controlled drugs may not be re-issued and will result in treatment interruption.
5. Dr Baig issues Controlled Drug prescriptions on Thursdays only, posted on the same day.
6. Please request a prescription so that you have plenty of time to receive the prescription and get medication from the pharmacy considering the weekly posting day of Monday. For prescriptions to be posted on Thursdays, all requests must be received by Monday via prescription request form.
7. Non-controlled drug prescriptions are issued electronically, and you will receive a prescription in your email, which a pharmacy can dispense.
If you are not happy with any aspect of the care
We hope that your appointment with us is a positive experience. However, we recognise that sometimes we may not get things right or we may not be able to meet your expectations. Should you be dissatisfied with any aspects of the service, please liaise with the concerned clinician in the first instance, who will do their best to resolve the issue for you. If the issue is unresolved and you would like to formally complain, you can write to the Practice Manager at umid@umid.co.uk.
Mutual Respect
We hope to provide a caring and compassionate service. We will treat you respectfully and ask that our staff be treated the same way. We have a right to terminate the treatment in case of threatening or abusive behaviour towards our staff.
Information Governance
1. Umid is registered with the Information Commissioner Office, and all personal data is processed following the UK GDPR. The personal information stored by Umid is for the provision of clinical care and associated administrative activities. We use a secure clinical records system to safeguard your clinical information. Please visit ico.org.uk should you have any queries or additional questions about your specific rights under the data protection legislation. Full details of our privacy policy are available on request. Please email us if you would like to have a copy.
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