Forward Thinking Birmingham

Hi Claire,

Thanks for your feedback. We're glad to hear we could help.

Kind regards,

The Forward Thinking Birmingham team

We’re sorry to hear that you don’t feel the care provided by Forward Thinking Birmingham was of the high-quality we aim to achieve for every patient and that you don’t feel your complaint was dealt with appropriately. We’d like to look into these concerns for you. Please could you contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service to discuss? You can contact the team on bwc.pals@nhs.net or 0121 333 8403. In relation to your concerns around staff training, we’d like to reassure you that as a 0-25s service, our staff are experienced in both children’s and adults’ mental health care. Training is also provided to all of our clinicians to ensure that they are able to work with the full range of ages seen by our service.

Sorry to hear that you feel you haven't been able to access our services.

Please could you call our Access Centre on 0300 300 0099 so that we can provide an update on your referral?

Thanks for your feedback on our service.

We understand that this situation can be quite confusing and wanted to explain why it may be the case that Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) has been diagnosed in one area of the city but not another.

Our Autism Spectrum Disorder team works according to the guidance from the National Autistic Society, which considers PDA as a particular presentation of behaviours for some people on the Autism Spectrum. When we complete an assessment for a patient where Autism is the diagnostic outcome, we will then go on to describe the strengths and areas of need for this young person, which will include a description of anxiety and behaviour, if this is an issue. This is where we would describe presentations that others might call PDA. We don’t call this PDA because of the newness of this categorisation within the Autism Spectrum. PDA is not included in the standard diagnostic classifications, which will influence whether clinicians use this as a standalone diagnosis. While some clinicians may be confident to make this diagnosis by making use of research evidence and practice guidance, many will not. This may lead to PDA being diagnosed in some areas but not others.

If there's anything we can do to improve your experience with Forward Thinking Birmingham, do please get in touch - forwardthinkingbirmingham.org.uk/contact