About

Dr Alex Hull

HCPC registered Clinical Psychologist. Assessing ADHD since 2014, in York and online across the UK.

Dr Alex Hull, HCPC registered Clinical Psychologist

Who I am

A Clinical Psychologist who assesses ADHD.

I am a Clinical Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. My training was a doctorate, six years of it, and that qualification is what allows me to work in this way. I trained and started out in the NHS, where I learned to work to recognised clinical standards.

I have been assessing ADHD since 2014 and have completed many hundreds of assessments in the years since, with children from the age of six and with adults of any age.

What this is for

The importance of getting it right.

Few areas of my field attract as much opinion as ADHD, and a good deal of it is offered with more confidence than care. Working in it properly means holding your own standards steady while the argument carries on around you.

I also have a personal reason for caring about it. I struggled badly with concentration at school and again at university, and I finished my doctorate a year after the people I started with. I know how it feels to work twice as hard for the same result without understanding why.

If it is ADHD, it can be supported, and supported well. That works when the diagnosis sits inside a broader understanding of the person rather than standing on its own.

Handing somebody a label they do not warrant does real damage, even when it is welcome at the time. It can feel like relief. The trouble arrives later, when the strategies built on that label do not work, and they are left wondering why the thing that was meant to explain everything has not helped. An assessment is worth doing because of the foundation it puts in, and that is the part that has to be solid.

The other half of it is what happens after. Understanding changes things for people, and I get to watch that happen.

It shows up most in the quiet ones: the people who were never any trouble to anybody, who got on with it, and who assumed everybody found it this hard. They are the easiest to miss, and usually the ones for whom the answer changes most. That part of the job has not worn off.

The training behind it

What a Clinical Psychologist actually does.

A Clinical Psychologist is trained to understand a whole person rather than a single condition. The doctorate takes years and covers the full range of psychological difficulty across a lifespan: anxiety, trauma, mood, autism, learning difficulties, the effects of a hard childhood and the effects of a hard year. The skill it teaches is holding all of that at once and working out which part explains what.

That breadth is the whole point in an ADHD assessment, because the real question is never simply whether this is ADHD. It is what is going on here, and what else could account for the same picture. Anxiety can look like inattention. Trauma can look like impulsivity. Exhaustion can look like both. Somebody trained only to look for ADHD will tend to find ADHD, because it is the only thing they are equipped to see.

My work is to bring the criteria and the person together: to be rigorous about the diagnosis, and just as clear about what this individual is actually struggling with, and what follows from it.

How I work

Led by me, from the first call to the final report.

I lead every assessment. Your care will never be transferred over to a less experienced colleague.

Where a picture is complex I bring in colleagues from other professions: occupational therapists, fellow psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers. That is a strength rather than a dilution. It means your assessment has more expertise brought to it, not less, and it stays led by me throughout.

There is a real difference between a Clinical Psychologist who assesses ADHD and somebody who has completed a short course and become an ADHD assessor. The value is not in knowing the criteria, which anybody can learn. It is in knowing everything the criteria have to be weighed against.

See the assessment step by step

Qualifications and registration

Everything here can be checked.

My registration is a matter of public record. You are welcome to verify it, and I would encourage you to do the same with any clinician you are considering.

BSc Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London

MSc Developmental Psychology, University College London

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, Teesside University

HCPC registered Clinical Psychologist, PYL32817. Check the register

UKAAN certification in ADHD assessment

Assessing ADHD since 2014, including in the NHS

The fee

One fee, everything included.

£975 in person in York

£875 online

The interview, the questionnaires, the QbCheck, the full written report, the feedback meeting and the letter to your GP. Nothing further to pay at any stage.

Arrange a free consultation

In their words