All great tips peters but if I may just add a little ,
There is a big difference between debt consolidation and debt management.
With consolidation you are essentially taking about a big loan that covers everything and puts it in one place.
Debt management is where you are paying a company to approach all the people you owe money to and say 'This person is not managing their debts and needs to renegotiate before they get totally up the creek'
There are some very very important things to consider before going down this route.
1. As part of the process you will need to miss a month on all of your debts, this will damage your credit rating for over six years!
2. Due to the above you will get ++++ nasty phone calls/letters from creditors and they aren't under any obligation to accept the management company's offer so this won't necessarily stop after the first month.
3. Check the charges and make sure to check that company is reputable, I unfortunately went down the debt management route a few years ago to find out that although I was paying the company on the understanding that they would then pay my creditors ...they didn't
thereby landing me well and truly in it!
4. Last but not least, if you are confident at writing letters and approaching people, there's nothing the debt management companies do which you can't, unless they are setting up an IVA {and I'll check out if you can do that yourself}.
Having gone down the debt management route , I would say that unless you're desperately , massively in debt {£20,000 +} then I wouldn't go for it as first option. Take it under a huge amount of advisement.