What happens if I have to cancel or reschedule a Relate Direct phone counselling appointment?
To cancel or reschedule an appointment you need to contact the Booking Line 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 10am on Saturday, Sunday or Monday must be cancelled / rescheduled before 10am on the previous Friday. Less than this will result in not enough notice being given.
2. You wish to cancel your appointment for Thursday 8pm. You need to contact the booking line 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 Relate Direct appointment payment will be taken from the nominated debit or credit card immediately (it will show on your statement as 'RCO', which stands for Relate Central Office).
- 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) : £10 admin fee will be retained. Your card will be credited with the balance.
- Request to reschedule the appointment with less than 24 hours notice: £15 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 the Booking Line 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, the Booking Line 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
- The Booking Line for Relate Direct is open 09.00 - 17.00 Monday to Friday, excluding Bank Holidays and some other times. 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 of the Booking Line over holiday periods and this will also be reinforced by the message facility that operates outside of these hours and also at peak times.
- 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.
