Terms and conditions

 

The material on this site is subject to copyright protection of South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust unless otherwise indicated. This protected material may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for private study, research or for internal circulation within an organisation subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. If any such items are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged.

The permission to reproduce South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust protected information does not extend to any information on this site that is identified as being the copyright of a third party.  Authorisation to reproduce such information must be obtained from the copyright holders.

Where images of people appear on this site, those people have given their consent for the use of the images for this site.  The use of those images for any other purpose would constitute a breach of confidentiality on the part of the person using them for that other purpose.

Links policy

Links are provided for information and convenience only. The Trust cannot accept responsibility for the contents or reliability of sites linked to, or the information found there. A link does not imply an endorsement of a site; likewise, not linking to a particular site does not imply lack of endorsement.

You do not have to ask permission to link directly to pages hosted on this site. The pages must load into the user’s entire window.

Accuracy

We have taken every care in the content preparation of this website in regards to its accuracy and completeness however, the material on or from this site is intended to give general information only. It is not intended to be relied upon or to be regarded as a substitute for legal or medical advice. South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust does not therefore accept any liability for loss or damage which may arise from reliance upon the information contained in any of the material on this website.

The content of any external website which is linked from this site or which links to this site via hyperlinks is third party content over which South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust has no influence and therefore we accept no responsibility for such content.

Please contact us if you feel we are providing inaccurate information or if an area of the website has not been kept up-to-date by emailing PatientExperience@scas.nhs.uk

Availability

The Trust cannot guarantee uninterrupted access to this website, or the sites to which it links. We accept no responsibility for any damages arising from the loss of use of this information.

Intellectual property

The names, images and logos identifying the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust are the proprietary marks of the NHS and you must not use the NHS logo to link to our site without prior permission.

Copying any other third party logos accessed via this web site is not permitted without the prior approval of the relevant copyright owner.

Privacy statements

The NHS is committed to respecting the privacy of individuals using this website. The site does not collect any personal information about those using the site, or use cookies to track or log information about users.  We do analyse the server log files which contain details of the Internet address (IP address) of computers using the site, pages looked at, the times of day and the type of web browser used. None of this information is linked to individuals. Where users provide us with information or feedback, information is treated in the strictest confidence.

The full Privacy Statement for South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, is available here. It applies solely to this website.

Forms

Any information submitted through forms on the website is transferred to us by email, and will be dealt with by us in accordance with data protection legislation. Emails are not encrypted before being sent to us and, as the internet is not always totally secure, users are sending the information at their own risk.

Notification of changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our homepage so our users are always aware of what information we collect and how we use it.

Virus protection

We make every effort to check and test material at all stages of production.  It is always wise for you to run an anti-virus programme on all material downloaded from the internet. We cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system that may occur while using material derived from this website.

Use of cookies and other user statistics

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive while they are visiting a particular website. It contains simple information about the user’s identity but no personal information. When the user closes their browser, the cookie is destroyed.

Social media acceptable use

We use social media to share important information and respond to local people and we welcome comment and suggestions from other social media users.

However, we have a duty of care towards our staff and this includes their interactions with people on our social media channels. We will not tolerate abusive or unacceptable posts on our social media channels and we will block or mute accounts which interact with us in an unreasonable way.

Unacceptable behaviour includes, but is not limited to:

  • Swearing and offensive language
  • Sexism
  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Homophobia
  • Transphobia
  • Ageism
  • Ableism (especially prejudice against people with disabilities)
  • Intolerance of religion or religious belief
  • Inciting hate or harm (for example, discrimination based on protected characteristics)
  • Harrassment
  • Threats
  • Personal or defamatory comment about individuals, including our staff
  • Spamming with content unrelated to NHS or local health and social care

Threats, harassment and abuse will be reported to the Police.

Sharing malicious or offensive posts on social media may also be found to be an offence under the Malicious Communications Act.

We will not notify people directly when they are blocked and we will not discuss on social media the reasons for this action being taken. If you are blocked from interacting with us online and believe the action taken to be in error, please contact us by email with details and we will look into what has happened. Please note, accounts that have been blocked for the above behaviours will not be interacted with by email. This does not affect your right to make a complaint.

If you are blocked from interacting with us online and believe the action taken to be unfair, you can make a complaint.

We also have a responsibility to local people to make sure that the information we share on social media is accurate, inclusive and informative, which includes the comments and information shared on our posts.

We will actively remove and/or challenge, where possible, false information. Accounts that spread misinformation on our channels will be denied access to our social media channels.

Healthy debate is welcomed and we always welcome discussion and feedback on local services. However, false and dangerous claims can cost lives and we cannot allow them to be spread using our channels, which is why we are committed to making sure they are a source of information you can trust.