At UCLH, we may need to contact patients by telephone to:

  • Talk about an upcoming appointment, or 
  • Discuss your clinical care, for example a telephone follow-up clinic.

From September, to make it easier to get in touch with you, we are changing our telephone system so you can see if you’ve missed a call from staff in our services. Rather than having a missed call from a withheld number, you will now see the number starting with 0203 when we call.

If you miss the call and phone the number back, you will hear a message saying:

“You have missed a call from the NHS. The person will attempt to call you back, no further action is required on your part.”

We know that some people have phones that don’t allow withheld numbers to get through (to stop nuisance cold calling). This change means when our services need to call, they are more likely to get through.

You will never see a call from us showing the service number directly. This is for confidentiality and to protect those patients who do not want friends or family to see the name of the service or number on the phone.