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While you wait

During your time waiting for an appointment or treatment, we may contact you from time to time to ensure you still need to be on our waiting list and to check that all of your contact details are up to date.

Some patients decide to undergo treatment elsewhere, or move out of the area and forget to tell us. By updating our system with this information, we are able to see and treat the patients who need to be seen sooner and reduce waiting times.

We may contact you by telephone, text message or a letter. Please read the message carefully and where asked to respond, please do so promptly as in some cases, not responding could result in you being removed from the waiting list.

If you tell us that you would like to remain on the waiting list, you do not need to get in contact with us. Our systems will be updated with your decision and you will be prioritised in order of clinical urgency and length of wait, and offered an appointment or date for your procedure as soon as one becomes available.

To support you while you are waiting you may benefit from one of our courses about self-management of symptoms lasting 3-months or more. We have courses that relate to the management of Chronic pain, long term symptoms, and living well while working; as well as courses related to particular long-term conditions, such as Diabetes, COPD, Fibromyalgia and Heart failure, to name a few.  If you would like to find out more please look at the Health and Wellbeing Courses - Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (nhs.wales), or call our team on 03000 852280.

Add To Your Life is an online, personal health assessment that provides you with lots of valuable, tailored information developed to help you get the best from your NHS treatment.  

Taking action now to improve your physical health and mental wellbeing will not only reduce the risk of any complications during your treatment, but it will also benefit your recovery and long-term health, getting you feeling better sooner. 

To complete your health assessment today, visit: www.addtoyourlife.nhs.wales 

Agreeing a suitable date for your appointment or procedure

The focus of the booking process is to offer 2 mutually agreed dates with 3 weeks-notice for both outpatient and inpatient attendances. If you are on an outpatient waiting list waiting for an appointment you will either, be contacted to agree a date or you will receive a letter offering you a date to attend. If the proposed date is not convenient for you, there will be clear steps on how to contact the health board to change this. If you do not respond to the letter, the appointment will be deemed as mutually agreed, and if you do not attend your appointment this may result in you being removed from the waiting list. If you are on one of our waiting lists for a procedure, you will be called to agree a date and time that is suitable for you.

If you decline 2 reasonable offers with 3 weeks-notice provided for the appointment or procedure date, this will mean you’re waiting time will either be reset, or you will be removed from the waiting list.

If you decide to delay your treatment for personal, or social reasons and declare yourself unavailable, your waiting time will be adjusted to reflect this:

  • when the period of unavailability is less than 2-weeks, no adjustment may be made;
  • when the period of unavailability is between 2 and 8-weeks, an adjustment may be made for the full period of time that you are unavailable.

When the Health Board has received your referral, you are required to make yourself available for appointments, diagnosis and treatment. If you tell us that you are unavailable for a period of time longer than 8-weeks you will be returned to the care of the person who referred you. To ensure that removing you from the waiting list is in your best clinical interest, this will be discussed and agreed by your consultant. If your waiting time is reset and it is agreed that you should remain on the waiting list, you will be informed of this verbally or in writing.

Text reminder service 

We can contact you with a reminder for your first, or follow-up outpatient appointment 7-days and 48-hours before your attendance.

This communication can be via SMS (text), Interactive Voice Message (landline), or Agent Calls (person to person call reminders). To opt in to text reminders please visit here: 

If you receive a 7-day reminder, you will be given the option to cancel or re-book your appointment.  Following a 48-hour reminder you will only be able to cancel and not be given the option to rebook through this service due to the short notice. If you do not respond to rebook or cancel your appointment in this time, you will be expected to attend your appointment. If you do not attend you may be removed from the waiting list and discharged back to the person who referred you.

Not all speciality clinics are signed up to the reminder service.  We are committed to providing equitable access to this service for our patients and are engaging with services to increase adoption where appropriate.   

Help us avoid wasting valuable NHS time by:

  • Informing us if you change any of your details, such as name, address and telephone numbers, or any change to your condition. You may have decided to have your treatment undertaken somewhere else, if this is the case please do get in touch and let us know.
  • Cancelling your appointment, or procedure if you cannot attend by calling the telephone number on the top of your confirmation letter this will enable us to offer the appointment to another patient on the waiting list
  • If you fail to attend your appointments without giving the hospital any notice, you may be removed from the waiting list and referred back to the person who referred you.