We are officially online with social media. Please feel free to like and follow us online to receive updates and information from the practice.
It is entirely your decision to follow us online. You have a right to privacy and we are not responsible for anything you decide to share online. This is not a platform to request prescriptions, appointments, make complaints or to openly discuss your health concerns
Patients are reminded not to post any derogatory, defamatory, or offensive comments on social media directed to the Practice or members of staff. We operate on a Zero tolerance policy and depending on the content of the post, it may be viewed as a potential breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship, and could result in you being removed from our practice.
We know and respect that people may have different views and experiences they want to share on social media, but the Trust will not tolerate or accept any form of cyber-bullying on social media platforms.
We will act if content in any format (such as comments, videos, images, GIFs, attachments, links or emojis) is interpreted as:
- Defamatory, slanderous, misleading, or false
- Abusive or threatening – this includes swearing, adapted spellings with the same meaning, etc.
- Intimidatory towards our staff, elected members, or other platform users
- Mentions a staff member or service user by name, making them identifiable to others
- Containing allegations against staff or other service users
- Inciting hate crime or hate crime words
- Obscene, profane, or sexually-oriented
- Discriminatory in any way
- Promoting illegal activity
- Promoting individual products or services
- Completely off-topic
- The same message posted many times, otherwise known as ‘spamming’
- Controversial, irrelevant, and off-topic, otherwise known as ‘trolling’
If your content falls into the categories listed above, the Trust may take steps to hide or delete the post. Our approach will be to:
- Respond to your content and/or direct message. We will explain the reason we deem the post to be inappropriate and ask you to remove the post immediately.
- In serious cases such as allegations against staff or if the content is part of an investigation or could be deemed a safeguarding issue, we will have no option but to immediately remove the comment.
- In some cases, we may take action to screenshot a post or post and save them offline. We will store these in line with GDPR guidelines and in some cases, we may alert or forward posts to service managers, the police or partner organisations, if there is a need to raise awareness of the content or if it is to be used to support action that will be taken including an investigation.
We ask if you have a complaint to please, contact the Practice Manager in the first instance. We welcome all feedback, positive and negative as it gives us the opportunity to review the services that we provide and where necessary or appropriate and make any changes or improvements. Please put your comments to us in writing giving us the opportunity to respond.
We would be grateful if patients could be pro-active in reporting any offensive social media posts regarding the surgery or members of staff to the Practice Manager in writing.
You would not expect to read derogatory comments about yourself at your own place of work, nor do we.