Quentin Spender

About me

I am a retired Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, with over 25 years’ experience in the NHS. I am also a qualified Family Therapist. My skills are with children aged 0 to 18 and their families, with almost any presenting problems.

As a psychiatrist, I am used to doing thorough assessments, and prescribing medication.

As a Family Therapist, I am used to exploring issues through talking, either with several people from the same family, or one person. When doing individual counselling, I tend to adopt a 'Rogerian' approach — person-centred counselling.

I will readily refer to colleagues for more specialist individual therapy, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I can be flexible about venues and appointment times: for instance, as Covid gets slightly better, I have again begun to offer home visits, and face-to-face appointments in my clinic.

Please note that, because my training is with under-18s, I do not generally see anyone over 18 for initial assessment. If I start seeing someone at the age of 16-17, then I may continue seeing them post-18th birthday if this seems appropriate.

Training, qualifications & experience

Qualifications

Basic medical qualification: MB, BS 1979, awarded by the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, London

Paediatric qualifications: DCH (Diploma in Child Health) 1981; MRCP (Member of the Royal College of Physicians) 1983: Paediatrics only.

Psychiatric qualification: MRCPsych (Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists) 1991

Family Therapy qualification: Advanced Clinical Diploma in Family Therapy 1996, awarded by the Institute of Family Therapy, leading to membership of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, via the Association for Family Therapy.

Experience

I have been an NHS Consultant in Child &Adolescent Psychiatry since 1979, working almost exclusively in outpatient CAMHS. I retired in 2014, and then did intermittent Locums until July 2018. I now have a thriving private practice.

Member organisations

Registered / Accredited

Accredited register membership

Areas of counselling I deal with

Other areas of counselling I deal with

Childhood ADHD

Childhood ASD

Therapies offered

Family/systemic therapy
Integrative
Person-centred therapy

Fees

From £300.00 to £1,000.00
Free initial telephone session

Concessions offered for

Keyworkers
Low income
Students
Trainee counsellors
Unemployed

Additional information

£1000 for the initial assessment if it involves ASD and/or ADHD; £700 otherwise. The initial assessment fee includes pre-session reading of previous assessments and scoring questionnaires; plus writing a thorough assessment report. includes reading previous reports and clinic letters, scoring questionnaires, an initial appointment of 1½-2 hours, and preparing a thorough assessment letter after the appointment (the letter may incorporate the first few follow-up appts, to include, for instance, response to medication, or results of further assessments).

Follow-up appt charges are £120 per half-hour or less, and thereafter £60 for each completed 15 minutes. Follow-up appts are mostly of roughly half-an-hour. The follow-up fee includes any necessary clinic letter.

Prescription charges are £37 each. Due to the Covid-induced impairment of First Class mail, these are now all sent by Special Delivery, which costs just under £7.

Emails and phone calls necessary for administrative purposes are included in the above prices. Prolonged emails or phone conversations with parents or professionals about clinical issues may be charged at £50 per half-hour. A subsequent more detailed summary report (e.g. an ASD assessment, or for medico-legal purposes) is charged at a rate of £300. Shorter reports are charged pro rata.

The following categories may allow a reduction:
# siblings of existing clients: reduction of £200
# low income or any plausible cause of hardship:
£300 for assessment; £60 per follow-up; £20 per prescription