The Health and Social Care Board will reimburse all reasonable expenses for one relative’s stay at King’s.

On returning to Northern Ireland –

• Contact the Patient Travel Officer on 028 9536 3242 or 028 9536 3034 (Direct Line 0300 555 0166) or email Patient.travel@hscni.net for the necessary form.
• Please keep receipts for accommodation and taxi travel to and from airports.  These will be required to process your claim.  Please note that a taxi service should only be used between the airport and hospital; all other travel should be undertaken using public transport. Expenses for meals will be reimbursed at the rate of £15 a day.  It is not necessary to keep receipts for food.

Claims must be made within 3 months of your return to Northern Ireland.  If your stay is longer than 3 months, please submit your first claim at the 3 months stage.  A further claim or claims can be made afterwards.

Kings College Hospital –

is in Camberwell in South East London.  We provide a comprehensive guide now on exactly what takes place when you have been told that you will have an assessment in London. You can view and download this document below

A Patient Guide to Visiting King’s College Hospital.

For adults travelling to Kings, or other transplant centres, the Health Boards in NI will pay for the patient’s travel and for that of one carer. Travel forms, which you will need to sign, must be completed by the doctors in advance.

For children and families travelling to Birmingham, Patient Travel ( http://www.hscboard.hscni.net/travelfortreatment/), whose number is 0300 555 0116 will arrange flights for the patient and parent(s). A taxi is arranged by Birmingham Children’s to go from the airport to the hospital, you may need to ring the ward with your flight arrival time.

This will depend on how urgently you need a transplant.  A lack of available organs will determine the length of wait time which  largely depends on factors such as blood type, ethnicity and clinical need.

The length of recovery really depends on each individual person so its really difficult to advise on length of stay.

NO.

It is a popular misconception that cirrhosis only affects people who drink too much alcohol over the years. Cirrhosis has many causes and affects children, as well as those who drink little or no alcohol.  However, alcohol abuse is a common contributory factor.

The liver is a vital organ which performs many complex functions e.g.

• fighting infection;
• dealing with poisons and drugs;
• filtering and cleaning the blood;
• controlling cholesterol levels;
• producing and maintaining the balance of hormones;
• producing the chemicals responsible for blood clotting and tissue repair;
• processing digested food;
• producing bile to break food down;
• storing energy;
• storing sugar, vitamins and minerals.

It is the largest solid organ in the body and is the only one organ that can renew itself. Having said that, there are many liver disorders and here are some of the most common –

• Hepatitis (inflammation of the liver)
• Cirrhosis (scarring of the liver)
• Gallstones (which gather wherever there is bile, usually in the gall bladder),
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
• Cancer of the liver
• Primary Biliary Cholangitis (which destroys medium sized bile ducts within the liver)
• Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (where the bile ducts progressively decrease in size)
• Haemochromatosis (iron overload)
• Wilson’s Disease (where the body cannot control copper levels)
• Biliary Atresia (causing an obstruction of bile flow in babies).

Having any of the above conditions could mean that your body will display certain symptoms and some of these are detailed below –

• fatigue and weakness
• nausea and vomiting
• loss of appetite
• weight loss
• itchy skin
• jaundice (discoloured skin)
• pain in the abdomen (right upper quadrant).
• the liver may become damaged to the point where it cannot remove waste products, these are then carried to the brain. When this happens, symptoms range from minor memory lapses, slurred speech and confusion to – in severe cases – unconsciousness.  This is known as hepatic encephalopathy.

It would be important that you contact your GP to have tests carriesd out should you feel it necessary. The liver is a very robust organ and that means that sometimes it is in poor shape well before the patient is aware that anything is wrong.  Symptoms often take their time before revealing themselves, so patients can often become very ill very quickly.