Royal Liverpool

The Cardiac Psychology service works with patients at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital who require specialist psychological support related to their heart condition.

We work with adult patients following a cardiac event or a diagnosis of Heart Failure. Patients will be aged 18 and over, and under the care of a cardiologist. 

As we work across a wide geographical region, we offer face-to-face, telephone, and video appointments. We also support and work alongside the wider cardiology staff team as part of the multidisciplinary team.

Cardiac conditions can affect the whole person, it can also affect the family of that person. At times it can feel like life has suddenly changed. It is normal to feel worried, frightened, sad or even angry when faced with a cardiological condition. Whilst these experiences can be distressing in different ways, speaking to a psychologist can be helpful when these feelings start to significantly affect someone’s life.

Some examples of difficulties that we work with: 

  • Coping with an uncertain future 
  • Coping with how your condition affects relationships 
  • Managing the demands of home and family life whilst caring for yourself 
  • Feeling depressed, anxious or angry 
  • Coping with change and adjusting to your condition 
  • Coping with pain, discomfort, fatigue and side effects of medication 
  • Coping with how your condition affects your sexual wellbeing 
  • Trauma related to your heart condition
  • Effects on your self-esteem and sense of self 
  • Sleep problems (whether too much or too little) 
  • Psychological barriers to accessing testing, treatment or rehabilitation - such as the fear of needles.

A psychologist will support you to find more effective ways of coping with your concerns and cardiological issues. We may also be able to signpost you onto other services, if appropriate. The service receives lots of feedback from clients who report that discussing their experiences with someone outside of their usual social relationships is helpful.

Contact us

Tel: 0151 706 3126

Email: royalpsychology@liverpoolft.nhs.uk

Monitored Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm

More information

Information for patients

Anyone under the care of the Cardiology service, Cardiac Rehabilitation or the Heart Failure teams (community or hospital) at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital can request a referral to the Cardiac Psychology Service.

To be referred for support or to discuss whether a referral would be suitable for you, please speak with a member of the team involved in your care at your next scheduled appointment.

All referrals need to come via a member of staff from the services listed above. Unfortunately, we cannot accept referrals from services based at Aintree University Hospital. We do not accept self-referrals.

Unfortunately, the team does not have the capacity to see patients whose psychological difficulties/distress are not related to their cardiological issues. In this case, please speak with your GP to learn more about what is available to you.

There is a waiting list for referrals to the Cardiac Psychology Service.

Information for professionals

Referrals should be made via ICE.

Clinical psychologists are trained to understand the psychological effects of physical health problems. Through working with you and considering your expertise of your own life, a Clinical Psychologist will combine this with their knowledge and skills, with the aim of supporting you to reduce the negative impact that your condition is having on your psychological well-being.

During your initial assessment appointment, the psychologist will ask about the main difficulties associated with your heart condition.  If you and the psychologist feel that psychological therapy could be helpful, they will discuss the next steps for psychological support. Sometimes, a few appointments will be enough to help; other times, more appointments may be useful. Appointments are usually 50 minutes in length.

A psychologist is skilled in a variety of techniques and approaches. Depending on your situation and the psychologist's skill set, they may follow one approach or use multiple different approaches. You do not need to choose the approach used to support you; the psychologist will discuss this with you during your assessment appointment.

Some of the approaches available within the team are:

  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): modifying the way we think and behave to have a positive impact on our feelings
  • Mindfulness: shifting our attention towards the present moment, rather than worrying about the future or dwelling on the past
  • Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT): learning/ re-learning to be compassionate and less critical of ourselves
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): learning to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with emotions. Moving towards accepting these emotions and learning how to move forward with our life
  • Schema Therapy: working with maladaptive patterns of thinking (Schemas) to recognise, understand and change thoughts/behaviours to better cope with problems.

If you would like to have an interpreter present, then this can be arranged for you. You can learn more by visiting our interpreter services page.

Everything you discuss with a psychologist is confidential. However, if you mention something that concerns your own or somebody else’s safety, we may need to discuss that with relevant professionals to keep you/another person safe. If we need to do this, we will try to discuss this with you first.

Urgent Mental Health Support (Crisis) services

For more information on mental health services in Merseyside and Cheshire, please visit the Mersey Care website.  

For information on how to access mental health services in other areas, please speak to your GP, call NHS 111 or visit the NHS website.

NHS Talking Therapies

The NHS Talking Therapies, for anxiety and depression programme was developed to improve the delivery of, and access to, evidence-based, NICE recommended, psychological therapies for depression and anxiety disorders within the NHS.

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