Research and private study

The Crown copyright protected material (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) on this site may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium in order to carry out research for non-commercial purposes, for private study or for internal circulation within an organisation. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context.

Freedom of information

Supply of information under the Freedom of Information Act does not give the person or organisation the automatic right to reuse the documents in a way which will infringe copyright, for example, by making multiple copies, publishing or issuing copies to the public

Licences

If you would like to reuse Crown copyright protected material, please apply for a Click-Use Licence. The Click-Use online licensing system for the re-use of Crown and Parliamentary copyright information now also covers information produced by public sector organisations such as local authorities, the NHS, police and fire services.

There are three Click-Use Licences. These are:

• the PSI Licence – formerly known as the Core Licence. It covers core Crown copyright information and public sector information.
• the Valued Added Licence – this covers value added Crown copyright information.
• the Parliamentary Licence – this covers Parliamentary copyright information

You can apply online or by email (using the links below), or by writing to:

Office of Public Sector Information
Information Policy Team
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU

Further information on Crown copyright policy and licensing arrangements is available in guidance featured on the OPSI website at the links below:

Information and guidance on Crown copyright

More information on Click-use licences

Register online for a Click-use licence

Email address for enquiries about Click-Use Licences: licensing@opsi.gov.uk

Logos, images and videos

If you wish to copy logos, images or videos from the dh.gov.uk website or any of our online channels, you must contact the Department of Health for further guidance and authorisation.

Waiver

Some Crown material is subject to a waiver, which means that it may be reproduced in any format, free of charge, without obtaining official permission. Categories of Crown material for which copyright has been waived include government press notices, legislation and explanatory notes on the legislation, ministerial speeches, consultation documents, some documents on official websites.

Case studies

For some of these, content may not be Crown Copyright. You should contact the contributor of the case study/case history for permission to re-use it.

Third party copyright

The permission to reproduce Crown protected material does not extend to the material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.

Re-use of public sector information

Guidance and regulations on re-use of public sector information

Using dh.gov.uk

dh.gov.uk is maintained for your personal use and viewing. The access and use of dh.gov.uk featuring these terms and conditions constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions. They take effect from the date on which you first use this website.

You agree to use this site only for lawful purposes, and in a manner that does not infringe the rights of, or restrict or inhibit the use and enjoyment of this site by any third party. Such restriction or inhibition includes, without limitation, conduct which is unlawful, or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to any person, and the transmission of obscene or offensive content or disruption of normal flow of dialogue within this site.

Information collected by us is used for internal review, to improve the content of dh.gov.uk, to customise the content and/or layout of dh.gov.uk, to notify users about updates to dh.gov.uk, and to contact users for marketing purposes and is not shared with other organisations for commercial purposes.

Linking to dh.gov.uk

Please let us know if you wish to link directly to pages on dh.gov.uk by emailing the DH web team through the link below. We do not object to you linking directly to the information that is hosted on our site. We do not permit our pages to be loaded into frames on your site; dh.gov.uk pages must load into the user’s entire window.

The Department of Health reserves the right to move or change its website URLs at any time in order to meet changing business needs and to continually improve its online service. External websites link to the DH website at their own risk. We do not encourage deep linking but recommend linking to section homepages, which are less likely to move or change.

Intellectual property

The names, images and logos identifying dh.gov.uk are proprietary marks of the Department of Health. If you wish to copy or use the DH logo, you must get prior approval from the copyright manager by contacting the DH branding team through the link below.

Tell us how and why you wish to use our logos. Please include your contact details: name, address, telephone number, fax number and email.

Disclaimer

The dh.gov.uk website and material relating to Government information, products and services (or to third party information, products and services), is provided ‘as is’, without any representation or endorsement made and without warranty of any kind whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.

We do not warrant that the functions contained in the material contained in this site will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that this site or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or represent the full functionality, accuracy, reliability of the materials.

In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damages whatsoever arising from use or loss of use of, data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of dh.gov.uk.

Although we may from time to time monitor or review discussions, chat, postings, transmissions, bulletin boards and the like on dh.gov.uk, we are under no obligation to do so and assume no responsibility or liability arising from the content of any such locations nor for any error, omission, infringement, defamation, obscenity, or inaccuracy contained in any information within such locations on dh.gov.uk.

These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising under these terms and conditions shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Links to external websites

Links contained in dh.gov.uk will lead to other websites which are not under our control. We are not responsible for the content of any linked site. Listing and linking should not be taken as an endorsement of any kind and we accept no liability in respect of the content. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and have no control over the availability of the linked pages.

Email disclaimer

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that people who communicate with the Department of Health understand the way in which electronic mail (email) should be used. Its aim is to ensure that email is used effectively for its intended purpose without infringing legal requirements or creating unnecessary business risk.

The statement below applies to all incoming and outgoing email messages to or from the Department of Health:

‘This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, any reading, printing, storage, disclosure, copying or any other action taken in respect of this email is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by using the reply function and then permanently delete what you have received.

Incoming and outgoing email messages are routinely monitored for compliance with the Department of Health’s policy on the use of electronic communications.

The views expressed by the author may not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health.

Internet email is not a secure medium. Emails sent via the Internet could be intercepted and read by someone else. Please bear that in mind when deciding whether to send material to the Department.

You have a responsibility to ensure laws are not broken when composing or forwarding emails and their contents.

Attachments to email messages may contain viruses that may damage your system. Whilst the Department of Health has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise this risk, we cannot accept any liability for any damage which you sustain as a result of these factors. You are advised to carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment.’

RSS feeds

DH RSS feeds can be used as part of your website. However, we do require that the proper format and attribution is used when DH latest content updates appear.

The attribution text should read ‘DH RSS feeds’ or ‘dh.gov.uk/en/feeds’ as appropriate.

We reserve the right to prevent the distribution of DH RSS feed content.

The DH does not accept any liability for its feeds.

Social bookmarking

The social bookmarking links on the DH website are links to external websites. This means that the links will take you to other websites that are not part of the DH site and are not under our control. Use of our social bookmarking links is subject to the general Terms and conditions of this site, see the ‘Links to external websites’ section on this page.

Email this page

DH’s general Privacy policy applies to all email addresses submitted through the DH ‘Email this page’ service.

Use of DH’s ‘Email this page’ service is subject to the general terms and conditions of this site, see the ‘Email disclaimer’ section on this page.

The DH ‘Email this page’ service uses reCAPTCHA image verification to identify users as a human, rather than a spam-generating computer. Our use of reCAPTCHA reduces the likelihood of this service being used for unintended purposes.

Our choice of reCaptcha also helps to digitise texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored in digital format in order to preserve them and make them more accessible to the world. Since some of the words in these texts are difficult for computers to process, your efforts will help to decipher them.

reCAPTCHA is a third-party tool which is used at your own risk. The Department of Health has no control over the images/words displayed in the reCAPTCHA. We do not monitor nor have any control over reCAPTCHA images/words. We do not endorse or adhere to views or opinions expressed or perceived by any of the images/words in the reCAPTCHA tool. We do not endorse or adopt reCAPTCHA images/words and can make no guarantee as to its accuracy or completeness. We undertake no responsibility to update or review any reCAPTCHA images/words. If you do not agree with the use of reCAPTCHA or if you find reCAPTCHA words offensive, please use your usual email software/programme to manually send your recommended link to a friend. For further information about reCAPTCHA, please visit the reCAPTCHA website.

DH Privacy policy
ReCAPTCHA

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 program 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 which may occur whilst using material derived from this website.

DH Twitter policy

Terms of use for the Department of Health’s Twitter account (DHgovuk).

DH Twitter policy

Updated November 2009

We may at any time revise these terms and conditions without notice. Please check regularly. Continued use of dh.gov.uk after a change has been made is your acceptance of the change.

Contact the web team
Contact the DH branding team

The Data Protection Act

In accordance with the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We will only use your information for the purpose as described and we do not pass on your details to any other government department or third party unless you have given us permission to do so. You have a right to access your personal data and rectify any inaccuracies.

Site usage

We do not use cookies for collecting user information. Log files allow us to record visitor’s use of the site to enable us to enhance the future layout of the site. The data we gather in this way does not contain any personal information or information about which other sites you have visited.

If you provide feedback on our website we will only use it to develop and improve the site. We will keep the actual feedback for six months after which it will be deleted but analysis of feedback may be kept.

Statement coverage

This privacy statement only covers the Department of Health website at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130221130239/http://www.dh.gov.uk. It does not cover links within this site to other websites.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss and alteration of information under our control.

Changes to the policy

If the privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing the page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or the practices of this site, please contact:

the Web Team
Email: mb-web-feedback@dh.gsi.gov.uk

Glossary of terms

• Cookies are files containing information about visitors to a web site (e.g. user name and preferences). This information is provided by the user during the first visit to a web server. The server records this information in a text file and stores this file on the visitor’s hard drive. When the visitor accesses the same web site again the server looks for the cookie and configures itself based on the information provided.
• Log files are files created by a web or proxy server which contains all of the access information regarding the activity on that server.