Organising a visit to your hospital

We are always looking to strengthen the UK liver disease community’s links with policy makers. We work to ensure the voices of patients and clinicians are heard at the highest level of government.

With your support we hope to create and strengthen relationships between elected politicians and their local liver units, to improve political awareness around liver disease, to develop political champions and to ensure liver disease is appropriately prioritised by policy makers.

To help us achieve this, we are asking senior clinicians at liver units to invite local MPs or devolved parliamentarians (MSPs, MSs and MLAs) to their hospital to find out more about the impact of liver disease on people in their constituencies and across the country.

If you are able to invite a local politician to your hospital, get in touch at [email protected] and we can support you with template invitaions, press releases and messaging documents.

Approvals process for hosting a parliamentary visit

It is important to check your hospital’s internal processes for arranging a visit to ensure appropriate approvals are secured. This might include coordinating closely with colleagues in the Unit and obtaining sign off from the Chief Executive’s Office. Please also liaise with the hospital communication team for support in promoting the visit in local press and social media and making arrangements for photo opportunities.

Inviting your local parliamentarian

Follow the links to find your local politicians:

We recommend you check whether the hospital catchment area includes more that one constituency, as you may wish to invite multiple politicians.

Politicians will be interested in your experiences as a local clinician and local data that shows how liver disease affects their constituents. Local data can be found at:

The Office of Heath Improvements and Disparities (OHID) publishes local, regional and national statistics (hospital admissions, premature deaths, NAFLD, alcohol related liver disease) on FingerTips (England only).
The Scottish Public Health Observatory publishes chronic liver disease data, including comparing data on mortality and hospital stay across the different health boards.
The Welsh Government published the Quality Statement for Liver Disease in November 2022. The Quality Statement describes what good quality liver disease services should look like.
If you need help locating your local data, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]

Send a letter inviting your local parliamentarian(s) and liaise with their team to find a suitable date for the visit of the hospital liver unit to take place.