Your Appointment at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital

Here at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, we want to ensure you have all the information you need for your appointment, and that your experience is as positive as possible.

There are many reasons why you might have been invited to an appointment with us, including attending an outpatient clinic, having a diagnostic test, coming in for surgery or another type of procedure.

When attending Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, please bring your appointment letter with you and any other information or items outlined in your letter.

appointment

Outpatient Appointment

Within our Outpatient Department, people are seen according to their appointment time and not according to the time they arrive at the hospital. Please aim to arrive in plenty of time for your appointment.

When you arrive, there are check-in kiosks immediately outside the Outpatient Department, where you will be asked to confirm your details on screen and advised what you should do next.

Alternatively, if you have any questions and would like to speak with a member of staff, there is also a reception desk within the department and they will be happy to help.

cancel appointment

Cancelling and appointment questions

If you’re not able to attend your appointment, it is important you contact us to let us know as soon as possible. Please use the number on your appointment letter, or if you don’t have this, please call 0151 600 1616. Please note that appointments cancelled on the day will be referred back to your clinician who will make a decision on whether your appointment should be rebooked.

Where a patient does not attend (DNA) their hospital appointment and did not tell us beforehand, the appointment goes unused. Unfortunately Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital has approximately 10% of appointment slots unused. Please help us to help others, and if you let us know in advance, we will be able to offer the appointment to another patient who needs it.

If you have any other questions about your appointment, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

referral

Referral information

Appointments at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital are made via GPs or through a Consultant at another hospital. If you are a patient and you are interested in any of our services, please discuss this with your GP.

Patients are eligible for free NHS treatment at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital if they are:

Ordinarily a resident in the UK, or
Overseas visitors, but entitled to free NHS services under the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2011 (as amended in 2012).

Link to Overseas Visitors page within Our Patients Section

Patient appointments will be received either as letters via the post, or in some cases via text messages to your mobile phone.

If the appointment is received by text message, the message will include a link from ‘NHSNoReply’, which will allow you to view and download your appointment letter on your smartphone, tablet, or PC.

By following the link you will be asked to enter your date of birth and unique PIN before accessing the secure patient portal site.

Receiving a digital appointment letter will mean that you will be able to view and manage your appointment on your smartphone, tablet, or computer through the secure patient portal rather than receiving a physical letter. You may also receive any pre-assessment instructions, essential reading, and hospital information as attachments.

If you do not access the digital letter within 24 hours or your mobile phone number is not held with the hospital, a physical letter will be automatically sent to your address.

Healthcare Communications UK specialises in patient communications and partners with over 100 trusts to deliver secure patient messages. They specialise in SMS text appointment reminders, through its ‘Envoy’ Platform, and linking with the Trust's Outpatient Department.

How does Envoy contact people?

Envoy sends communication to patients in these ways:

Text messages: Reminding patients of their appointment, and sending links to the patients digital letters via SMS.
Voice Call: In some instances where a patient does not have a mobile phone, patients can receive a voicemail reminding them of their appointment.
Patient Portal: This is an online platform where the patient can log in and view their appointment letter digitally.
Physical Letters: Envoy acts as the Trust's mailing partner. When a patient cannot access their letter digitally, then the patient would have a physical copy sent to their address.

How does this all work?

When a patient has an appointment generated, this is automatically sent to Envoy to create a digital letter on the following day, and to send the patient a link to this letter via a text (SMS) message. The patient receives a text with a link and a PIN number. The patient needs to click the link, use the PIN number and enter their date of birth to log into the letter.

If the patient either cannot, or is unable to, access their link, then Envoy will automatically send a physical letter to the patient's address. Each letter would be sent via first class post. The patient gets an automatically generated physical letter 48 hours after the first text is not accessed.

When the patient gets to one week before their appointment, Envoy sends a reminder text. Please note, this is a different to the text mentioned previously. A reminder text has details of the appointment, such as date and time. The other text mentioned above, is a text with a link to the patient letter. For the reminder text, the patient sometimes has the opportunity to reply back to the message to confirm their attendance, or to rebook or cancel. This depends how the clinic has been set up. The patient will receive TWO reminder messages - the first is ONE week before their appointment, and the second is 48 hours before the appointment.

What does it look like?

Unfortunately, it is commonplace for scams to pose as people or organisations and ask for peoples personal details.

Please see below how our appointment texts look like. You can see, this comes from an NHSnoreply contact and the link commonly looks like the below. If a patient receives something different, posing as LHCH, please report this immediately to joshua.case@alderhey.nhs.uk

Example Text Message Photo

All referrals that are received into Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital are reviewed by a clinician. They will make a decision about who you need to see and when. Their decision will be based on the clinical information contained within your referral. The priority of your referral will be determined by our consultant and not the referring clinician. A referral that is marked urgent may not be treated as urgent unless the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital consultant who has reviewed your referral agrees with the urgency.

How long you need to wait for your appointment will depend on a number of different reasons but will be mainly influenced by the condition you have been referred for and how urgent it is. You may be offered appointments from a range of different clinics or consultants, or you may need to be seen by a specific consultant or in a specialist clinic.

Where you can be seen from a range of clinics or consultants, your waiting times may be slightly lower. If you need to be seen by a specific consultant or in a highly specialised clinic, then your waiting times may be longer as there may be fewer appointments available. Waiting times are approximate and can go up or down over time. We aim to ensure that all our patients are seen as quickly as possible from the date we receive the referral.

If you feel that your condition has worsened since you were initially referred to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, then you should make contact with your GP or clinician who referred you to us as soon as possible. Where appropriate, your GP or referring clinician will then contact us, outlining any changes to your condition. This will be sent to our consultant to review and a decision will be made about whether a sooner appointment should be arranged.

If you feel your condition has significantly worsened or you need urgent care, you should consider whether you need to attend your local A&E department.

Although we do provide care and treatment to patients across Merseyside, Cheshire, North Wales, the Isle of Man and beyond, you should expect to travel to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital for your appointment and treatment.

It may be possible for certain conditions and for some clinics to be seen by video consultation or to have a telephone appointment, but your clinical team will be able to advise you.

Your Appointment at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital

How will I receive my appointment information?

I've had an SMS Text Appointment

Your referral priority

When will you hear about your appointment?

Understanding waiting times

I feel like my condition has worsened since I was initially referred to you

Will I need to travel to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital?

Can I choose whether to have a face-to-face, telephone, or video appointment?