Why this happens
Hero hands texts to your SMS provider (usually Firetext), which passes them to the patient's mobile network. A message can be stopped at any step. Hero shows four statuses: Pending (not yet left Hero), Sent (handed over, not yet confirmed), Delivered (reached the phone) and Failed.
Common reasons and what to do
What Hero shows | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Message blocked by the recipient's mobile network | The phone has text barring on, the number is inactive, or the network refused it | Try email or another number; ask the patient to check their phone |
Invalid phone number | Not a valid UK mobile (07… or +447…) | Correct it in EMIS or SystmOne, then resend |
Contact number doesn't exist / Missing contact number | The number is wrong or missing | Check the patient's details in EMIS or SystmOne |
SMS sending temporarily unavailable | Your practice's SMS credit has run out | Top up, then resend |
Sender name too long | The sender name patients see is over 11 characters | Contact us to shorten it |
Message too long or contains unsupported characters | Over 500 characters, or characters texts can't carry | Shorten it or remove special characters |
Scheduled send time error | Something went wrong with a scheduled send | Resend now |
Message could not be sent / Message delivery failed | Unexpected error, or no reason given | Try once more; if it fails again, contact us |
What you can do
Open the patient's Communications tab and click the failed message to see the reason. The failed-message task in your Inbox shows it too.
Don't copy and paste the same text to the same number. Fix the cause first.
If the number looks wrong, update it in your clinical system (EMIS or SystmOne).
If the patient has an email address or uses the NHS App, try that instead.
If the text had a link to an outside website, see "Why aren't my text messages with website links reaching patients?"
When to contact us
Use the support form (https://herohealth.fillout.com/supportform?partner=Direct), with the date and time of the message, if:
lots of texts fail at once across different patients
you see "Sender name too long" or "SMS service configuration error"
texts keep failing with no link and no obvious problem with the number
Related articles
View sent messages
Contact methods
Firetext: Get started