Intravenous Access Service

We accept inpatient and outpatient referrals from doctors, nurses and advanced practitioners. Patients cannot self-refer and must be referred by the responsible medical team.

For patients who require long term access (greater than one-week), central only medication administration or have frequent failed cannulas, please refer for line insertion.

Link to ICE.

For patients with short term requirements for IV therapy or access for scan/procedures and difficult venous access, please refer for ultrasound guided cannula insertion.

The IV Access Team is a non-emergency service, referrals are triaged by clinical information provided and as capacity allows. Please include relevant clinical information to support a timely response.

Ultrasound guided phlebotomy is performed by the IV access team only when capacity allows as other procedures take priority.

For troubleshooting and port access support, please contact us via Bleep or complete ICE referral for advice and support.

Refer to the Difficult Intravenous Access (DIVA) Algorithm for further guidance.

Outpatient enquiries

For Aintree or Woodlands, please email: IVTeam@liverpoolft.nhs.uk.

For Royal or Broadgreen, please email: RLHIVAccessTeam@liverpoolft.nhs.uk.

We are a nurse led team consisting of highly skilled practitioners, consisting of specialist nurses, assistant practitioners and clinical support workers.

Our service supports patients with long-term treatment requirements and those identified as having difficult intravenous access (multiple puncture attempts or repeated failed cannulas).

Our goal is to improve the patient experience by reducing the physical and psychological trauma associated with venipuncture, preserving vessel health, reducing infection risk, and preventing delays to treatment.

We collaborate with the wider members of the hospital’s multi-disciplinary team and our patients to provide the best standards of vascular access care every time.

We are always striving to improve our service through innovation by introducing new vascular access procedures, new methods of providing education to patients and staff and by being open to feedback so that we can consistently improve our practice.

• Central Line and Midline Management Clinical Guideline
• Flushing Intravenous Line Guidelines
• Kitelock™ Edetate Tetrasodium Four Percent Line Lock Clinical Guideline
• Central Line Policy
• Insertion of Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter SOP
• Peripheral Midline Insertion SOP
• Peripheral Intravenous Cannulation PIVC Standard Operating Procedure
• Intravenous Vascular Access Device Guidelines​​​​​​​.

To improve patient experience, the Intravenous Access Team provides training for relevant staff to support safe, high-quality care. We run monthly ‘Care of Vascular Access Devices’ practical sessions, alternating between the Royal and Aintree sites, and offer shadowing and ad hoc ward-based training on request via email.

View the latest COVAD training dates.

COVAD presentation.

Securacath training videos.

Video resources