What happens if I have to cancel or reschedule a Telephone Counselling appointment?
To cancel or reschedule an appointment you need to contact Merseyside Counselling 24 hours in advance of the appointment within working hours (see below for hours that line is open).
For an appointment during the day, notification must be received by the corresponding time on the previous working day. If the appointment is in the evening or at weekend, notice should be given by the end of the previous working day giving over 24 hours notice.
For example:
1. An appointment for 9am on Saturday, Sunday or Monday must be cancelled / rescheduled before 9am on the previous Friday. Less than this will result in not enough notice being given.
2. You wish to cancel your appointment for Thursday 7pm. You need to contact us before 5pm on Wednesday i.e. at least 24 hours in advance of the appointment. A message left after this time would not be accessed till 9am on Thursday therefore not giving 24 hours notice.
In the event that you wish to cancel or reschedule the
appointment, the following policy will be implemented:
When you make a Telephone Counselling appointment payment will be taken from
the nominated debit or credit card immediately (it will show on your statement
as 'MC', which stands for Merseyside Counsellor).
- Request to reschedule the appointment with 24 hours notice (given by end of working day before the appointment i.e. 5pm): No fee to reschedule.
- Cancellation of appointment with 24 hours notice (given by end of working day before the appointment i.e. 5pm) : £15 admin fee will be retained. Your card will be credited with the balance.
- Request to reschedule the appointment with less than 24 hours notice: £20 admin fee to reschedule.
- Cancellation with less than 24 hours notice: no refund given.
Non-completion of appointment:
If when the Counsellor calls at the agreed time and date and either there is no
answer on the telephone no(s) provided or you indicate that you cannot / do not
wish to proceed, no refund can be given.
Counsellors will invariably try more than once to contact you, using whatever telephone no's have been provided. Counsellors will leave a message if there is a message facility and you have agreed to us leaving messages. If you want to reschedule the missed appointment, there will be an additional charge of £20 and you must contact us within 2 'working' days to qualify, otherwise any new appointment made will be charged at the full rate.
Your appointment is re-scheduled or not completed due to
a complication / circumstances within our control:
Should you wish to rearrange, there will be no additional charges. If you
didn't wish to rearrange the appointment, a full refund will be given.
Where possible, we will endeavour to contact you in advance of any changes but this may not always be feasible and if not, we will attempt to contact you at the earliest possible time. However, should you prefer to call us to state how you wish to proceed, rather than having us contact you unexpectedly, please do so as quickly as possible. Overall, we cannot do anything without your instruction so will need to speak with you.
Other information
- Merseyside Counsellor is open on Monday to Sunday 9am to 9pm, (excluding Bank Holidays. Only these days and hours are regarded as 'working hours'.
- The person who makes your appointment for you will be able to advise you of the opening hours.
- Service Users are advised that any cancellations / rescheduling can only be made by telephone and within these hours.
- Messages can be left 'out of hours', however a message left overnight or at the weekend will not be received until the next working day and this will be the point at which any charges will be calculated from.