What we expect from our social media fans, followers and wider community.
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust's social media channels share content related to activity across the Trust and with our many partners. This may include (but is not limited to) stories about:
- Our colleagues and patients
- Our research and innovations
- Our capital developments
- National and regional health campaigns
We value everyone's right to free debate and discussion, but the views expressed by our social media followers, fans and subscribers are their own and may not represent the views of the Northern Care Alliance, or the wider NHS.
We want our social media channels to be safe and inspiring spaces, open for healthy and insightful discussion and engagement. Please follow our house rules to ensure that everyone has the same positive experience.
House Rules
- Privacy
- Relevancy
- Respect/Be Kind
- Copyright
- Enquiries
- Guidance on filming on our sites
- Guidance for colleagues
- Use-generated content
Please respect our house rules when engaging with us on social media networks. Failure to follow the rules may result in your posts being deleted and/or reported from our channels. If you persistently fail to follow our house rules you may be blocked from interacting with our channels.
Be aware of the existing policies in place for each specific social media platform.
Privacy
Please do not share any personal information relating to yourself or another individual/individuals, including email addresses, phone numbers or addresses in public posts. Posts or comments that include personal information in relation to a member of our staff will also be reported and you may be blocked from our account.
Relevancy
Comments or questions should be relevant to the subject of the original post. Any comments that are unrelated or repeated multiple times will be deleted or reported as spam. Equally, posts that advertise services unaffiliated to those run by the Northern Care Alliance will also be deleted.
Respect/Be kind
We want our channels to be a welcome place for debate/questions but encourage all users to be respectful at all times.
The Trust is strongly committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and has zero tolerance to any forms of harassment and discrimination. We will report any comments we are tagged in that include hateful, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, discriminatory or harassing language.
If you would like to make a formal complaint about comments made by a member of our staff you can do so by:
Telephone: 0161 656 1141
Email: office.complaints@nca.nhs.uk
In writing: PALS & Complaints Department, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, Unit 7-8, Whitney Court, Hamilton Street, Oldham, OL4 1DB.
Copyright
If you do not own the intellectual property of content, do not post it on social media. See the copyright policy on the specific social media channel for full guidance.
Enquiries
The Trust's social media platforms are monitored during typical office hours between 9am–5pm (GMT), Monday to Friday. This excludes bank holidays.
Please remain respectful when asking questions; the team will try their best to answer your question or provide links to advice and support. If the team receives any abuse from a social media user, we reserve the right to ignore or delete your message, report or block your account.
Our social media accounts are monitored by the Communication team who do not have access to clinical systems, patient information or appointment details – therefore any queries of this nature can unfortunately not be responded to.
If you wish to provide feedback about our services visit our Contact Us webpage - http://northerncarealliance.nhs.uk/contact-us
Guidance on filming/photography on our sites
If you are a patient or visitor to one of our sites, please be mindful of the privacy and dignity of our patients. Do not take photographs or video of people without their permission. Please be mindful of other patients and staff who may, for example, be in the background of a photograph/video of someone you’re visiting.
The media and other visitors must not take photographs or film footage in our premises or when staff are visiting a patient or service users in their homes without prior permission. This is to protect the confidentiality of other patients and our staff and to ensure patient information is not recorded without their consent. Our staff take the privacy and dignity of themselves and our patients very seriously, and will ask people who ignore these restrictions to stop immediately, and have the support of security staff in doing so.
If you need to take a photograph or film footage, please speak to a staff member on site.
Guidance for colleagues
Colleagues are reminded that the use of social media is governed by certain Trust policies: the Information Governance Policy, the Media and Social Policy and the Social Media Policy (Maintaining Confidentialty). The policies are available in our policy hub.
Please be mindful of what you post on personal social media channels.
User-generated content
User-generated content can be obtained when the owner of a photo or video shares it with one of the Trust's social media accounts via message, mentions the account’s handle, uses a hashtag promoted by the account or mentions the department/service represented by the account.
If you engage in such actions, then you allow the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust to use this content on our various social channels. If the user-generated content includes images of individuals other than the owner, the Trust uses this content on the basis that the owner has permission to share it.