Families accepted �5m compensation in January

Run by the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS), the phone line service aims to help communication between patients and carers.

It comes after bosses at the hospital were forced to publicly apologise following an organ retention scandal that led to a �5m compensation payout.

The government has set it up under the Health and Social Care Act, which states independent services should be provided for patients to complain about their NHS care.

'Useful tool'

The NYAS has been used as the pilot for the phone service after providing advocacy services in Merseyside for more than 20 years.

It has assisted on matters of youth justice, mental health and a range of legal matters.

George Marsh, co-ordinator of the service, told BBC Radio Merseyside the service will be a "useful tool" in giving patients a better quality health service.

Bosses at Alder Hey and the University of Liverpool apologised in February, for their role in a scandal that led to hundreds of organs being removed from foetuses without parents' permission.

'Unforgivable' pain

Ian Cohen, solicitor for the parents, earlier said: "Many families endured second, third and even fourth funerals due to the appalling manner in which information and organs were released to the parents."

An underfunded and understaffed pathology department was criticised as a major cause of the scandal.

The Redfern Report, published in January 2001, described as "unforgivable" the pain caused to the parents by "this dreadful sequence of events".