Epilepsy helpline

What you can expect

We understand that sometimes epilepsy can make life complicated. By listening to how your epilepsy affects you, offering non-judgmental emotional support, and accurate up-to-date information we aim to provide you with support and reassurance.

When you make contact our trained helpline operators may ask you questions to help you think things through and talk about what your options may be, or we may signpost you to other organisations that can help you. Our helpline operators have a wealth of knowledge and understanding about epilepsy and are all trained in counselling skills. We are unable to give you medical advice, or provide opinion or information to support professional or expert witness statements in a court of law. These should always be arranged through a doctor.

We are confidential

This means we will not share anything about you or what you talk about with anyone else, unless you ask us to, you would like us to send information to you, or in some very limited circumstances explained in our privacy policy.

See our privacy policy for more about our helpline service.

Language line

You can speak to us through an interpreter in over 200 different languages using Language Line Solutions. As we are a UK based charity, we can only offer this service to people living in the UK. To use Language Line, call our helpline and tell the helpline operator which language you need.

All Language Line interpreters have signed confidentiality agreements.

Our webchat 'pilot'

If calling our helpline isn't for you, you might want to use our webchat service. This allows you to contact our helpline operators about epilepsy in real time. We won’t ask you for any contact details so your chat will be completely confidential.

We are trialling this service in response to our survey where many people told us they would prefer to contact us through webchat. Once the pilot is over we will review any feedback and make any necessary changes to continue to provide the best and most appropriate support.

When the webchat is 'open' you will see a 'Chat with us' icon at the bottom right of the screen. Click this to start the service. At the moment we don't have set opening hours for webchat, it depends when operators are available. If you click on the ‘Chat with us’ icon but you are not connected to an operator, it means that our operators are busy on other chats. Please try again later, call the Helpline on 01494 601 400 or email us helpline@epilepsysociety.org.uk

Sometimes, if the response from the operator is lengthy, it might take a while for a message to appear. Please don’t close the window while we’re typing or you might miss some important information. During your chat, if the operator feels it would be more appropriate to talk things through on the phone, they might suggest you call instead.

Quality standard

Our helpline is a member of Helplines Partnership. If you would like to give us feedback about your experience with the helpline please complete our survey.

Information reviewed March 2023