Terms and conditions of use

The NICE website ("the Website") and all information contained in it are available for use subject to the following terms and conditions. By accessing the Website, you agree to these terms and conditions of use.

Background

1. The Website is owned and operated by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (“NICE”) a Special Health Authority established by order of the Secretary of State for Health and based at 4-8 Maple Street, London W1T 5HD ("NICE", "us", "our" or "we").

2. These Terms and Conditions apply to the use of the NICE website only. They do not apply to the NHS Evidence website.

3. The Website provides information about NICE's work, including its recommendations on the use of health technologies in the NHS, clinical guidelines on the management and treatment of particular conditions and its ongoing development of such recommendations and guidelines and other information.

4. Users must only use the site for purposes consistent with these Terms of Use.

5. If you do not comply with these Terms of Use, we may block your access to the Website.

General

6. The information on the Website is there to inform those in the United Kingdom making decisions about the funding of care and to assist healthcare and social care practitioners and others to improve the quality of care and treatment. Information on which parts of the United Kingdom may be affected by NICE guidance may be found here: http://www.nice.org.uk/aboutnice/whatwedo/niceandthenhs/nice_and_the_nhs.jsp

7. The Website is also accessible by the general public in the United Kingdom. Members of the general public may also find it of interest, and may use it to inform discussions with practitioners and those who take decisions about the funding of care.

8. NICE's functions do not extend beyond the United Kingdom. Neither the website nor any part of its content are intended to be relied on outside the United Kingdom.

9. Information retrieved from the Website does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare and social care professionals involved in the delivery of care to make informed professional judgments appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with the individual and/or their guardian or carer.

10. Practitioners, commissioners and managers are reminded of their duties to avoid unlawful discrimination and to have regard to promoting equality of opportunity. No material on the Website should be interpreted in a way which would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

11. If you are an individual who chooses to access the information on the Website, you should not rely on that information as professional medical advice or use it to replace any relationship with your doctor or other qualified healthcare or social care professional. For medical concerns, including decisions about medications and other treatments, individuals should always consult their doctor or, in serious cases, seek immediate assistance from emergency personnel. Individuals with any type of medical condition are specifically cautioned to seek professional medical advice before beginning any sort of health treatment. If you are a member of the public, you should evaluate the information on the Website together with your physician or another qualified healthcare or social care professional.

Your use of the Website

12. You may only use the Website for lawful purposes. You may not use, and shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that no other person uses, the Website in a way that does not comply with the terms of any laws applicable to you or that is in any way unlawful.

13. You agree:

13.1 to comply with any legal notices contained on the Website;

13.2 to respect and comply with the legal rights of others, in particular our rights (including our rights in copyright and trade marks), and the rights of our licensors;

13.3 not to use this Website for any commercial gain, personal or otherwise, nor to sell or trade in any of the content or other material copied or downloaded from this Website without our express written permission;

13.4 not to change any of the text or images contained in this Website or merge it with any other text or images, or forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any content; and

13.5 not to present or use material from the Website in a way that is misleading.

Intellectual property rights

14. You acknowledge that all rights in copyright, patents, design rights, trade marks and other intellectual property rights (whether registered, capable of registration or otherwise) throughout the world, (“IP Rights”) in the Website (including in all content) are owned by NICE and/or our licensors, other third parties or are subject to Crown copyright, for the full duration of such rights.

15. Except for your use of the Website in accordance with these Terms of Use, you are granted no IP Rights in respect of the Website or its content.

16. You may print copy or download the content from the Website for educational and not-for-profit purposes only and provided always that:

16.1 NICE is acknowledged as the source;

16.2 all titles credits and URLs are included; and

16.3 you comply with any legal notice contained in the Website.

This permission is revocable by NICE at any time.

17. All trade marks, logos, titles, brand and product names (“the Trade Marks”) which are featured on the Website are owned by NICE, or our licensors.

18. You may only use or refer to the Trade Marks which are included in those extracts from the Website downloaded, copied or printed by you in accordance with these Terms of Use. Otherwise you must not offer or distribute any products or services under or by reference to the Trade Marks, or otherwise reproduce any of the Trade Marks without our express written consent

19. Reproduction, publication or distribution of the content from the Website including NICE copyright material for commercial purposes is not permitted without the express written permission of NICE.

Links

20. The Website contains links to websites which are not under our control. These links are provided for your convenience only. We are not responsible for the availability or content of such other websites, nor for any products or services available from them. Any such link should not be seen as an endorsement by us of such websites, or any of the products or services contained on them. Links are made to or from the Website at your own risk.

21. You should be aware that your use of such other websites may be subject to additional terms and conditions imposed by the owners of those websites. Your dealings with such third parties are between you and the third party, and we accept no liability as a result of you accessing such websites or entering into contractual arrangements with the operator in question.

22. Users may insert a simple link to the Website from their own website provided that:

22.1 the website on which the link appears contains no unlawful, obscene, or offensive content and does not contain any links to such content;

22.2 the website on which the link appears is not likely to cause anxiety, loss, harm or personal injury to its readers; and

22.3 the link in no way has a negative impact on the reputation of NICE.

23. We reserve the right to terminate any links to the Website at any time without notice and at our sole and absolute discretion.

Shared learning: implementing NICE guidance

24. There is a section of the NICE website that allows NHS and partner organisations to submit and retrieve good examples of implementing NICE recommendations through a database. NICE has carried out a minimal quality assurance process on each of the examples included in the database to ensure it meets basic criteria before accepting it into the database. However, inclusion of an example in the database does not constitute NICE endorsement of the approach, product or tool.

25. The examples in the database do not constitute NICE guidance. NICE has not assessed the projects to confirm that they accurately reflect or implement NICE guidance. If you have queries or concerns about the relationship between NICE guidance and any examples given, please refer to the original NICE guidance, which is the only definitive statement of the guidance.

Privacy and data protection

26. Any personal data held by NICE on users visiting the NICE website, including web-based guidance consultations, will be used for the purpose of NICE business. It may be passed to third parties associated with NICE work in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and data sharing guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office. Anonymised consultation responses may be published on the NICE website or passed to third parties approved by NICE.

27. Personal data used for maintaining our mailing lists for the distribution of our guidance, news updates or E-alerts may be passed to data processors or other third parties approved by NICE to enable us to maintain these services. If you wish to discontinue the E-alert service please contact NICE.

28. Further information about how we may use your personal information and your rights to change or delete it can be found in the Information Charter.

Cookies

29. NICE uses ‘cookies' in the administration of its website. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer when you visit a website such as those maintained by NICE. They are used to make our websites work as efficiently as possible and to provide information to NICE website administrators on how well the site is working.

30. The following cookies are used on the NICE website:

Name	Data	Purpose
wt_fpc	Site use tracking info	WebTrends Analytics
__utma	Site use tracking info	Google Analytics
__utmb	Site use tracking info	Google Analytics
__utmc	Site use tracking info	Google Analytics
__utmz	Site use tracking info	Google Analytics
[FORMTYPE]	UID	Save form for later functionality
JSESSIONID	UUID number	Java session tracking
CFID	Number	Coldfusion session tracking
CFTOKEN	Number	Coldfusion session tracking
AUTHENTICATION	Hash	CMS authentication
CMSSITEID	Number	CMS site tracker
_psc	Site use sharing info	addthis.com
_uid	Site use sharing info	addthis.com
_uit	Site use sharing info	addthis.com
_uvc	Site use sharing info	addthis.com

31. This list is subject to change as NICE website services are developed and new functionality is included.

32. For more information on how to use your internet browser delete and block cookies on your computer visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/. Please note that some cookies are essential for the provision of NICE services via its website. If you block these cookies parts of the NICE website may not operate effectively.

Availability of the Website

33. We will make reasonable endeavours to ensure that this Website is generally available but make no representation or guarantees as to such availability.

34. We reserve the right to withdraw access to all or any part of this Website for periods of time in order to modify any of the content, for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance and for other purposes, without notice to you.

35. As you will receive this Website via third party telecommunications networks, you acknowledge that NICE cannot guarantee that the availability of this Website will be uninterrupted or error free. Similarly we cannot guarantee that the transmission of any information over such telecommunications networks will be secure nor that you will be able to access this Website at all times.

36. This Website is therefore provided to you on an “as is” and “as and when available” basis, and your use of this Website is at your own risk.

Disclaimers

37. We have processes in place to seek to ensure that the contents of this Website are accurate and that the links it publishes directing the user to third party websites function properly. However, we give no assurances regarding the currency, accuracy or applicability of any of the Website's content.

38. Due to the nature of the Website we cannot guarantee the prompt editing or removal of any inappropriate or inaccurate information. If you find any information that is inaccurate or inappropriate then please contact us.

39. While we use virus checkers to check the content of the Website we are unable to guarantee that the Website will never be faulty, nor that it will work continuously, nor that it will be maintained in a fully operational condition nor virus and/or error free. However we will use reasonable endeavours to correct serious faults reported by you as soon as we reasonably can.

40. You should always check any content before downloading. Any Website content is downloaded by you at your own risk and on the basis that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that result from the download of such content.

41. Without prejudice to any other limitations or exclusions of our liability in these Terms of Use we shall have no liability whatsoever in respect of any failure on our part to repair a fault in the Website or to provide continuous access to it.

42. Without prejudice to any other limitations or exclusions of our liability in these Terms of Use we shall have no liability whatsoever in respect of any inability on your part to obtain access to the Website whether through any denial of service, attack or otherwise.

43. You are responsible for the provision of and payment for all telecommunications services necessary to use the Website and all hardware, equipment and other services (including but not limited to computers, modems and any other communication equipment) necessary to use the Website.

44. We provide the Website to you without any conditions, warranties, or guarantees whether express or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties or conditions as to the satisfactory quality or fitness for a particular purpose, which are expressly excluded to the extent permitted by law.

Disclaimer in respect of the use of NICE guidance

45. The use of NICE guidance is subject to any disclaimer included within the guidance and the following disclaimer which applies to any recipient of NICE guidance whether they be a clinical professional or member of the public:

45.1 This guidance represents the view of NICE, which was arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. Healthcare professionals are expected to take it fully into account when exercising their clinical judgement. However, the guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer.

45.2 Implementation of this guidance is the responsibility of local commissioners and/or providers. Commissioners and providers are reminded that it is their responsibility to implement the guidance, in their local context, in light of their duties to avoid unlawful discrimination and to have regard to promoting equality of opportunity. Nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way which would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Our liability

46. Nothing in these Terms of Use shall or shall be deemed to limit our liability to you for any personal injury or death caused by our negligence or for any fraud perpetrated by us.

47. Subject to paragraph 43, you acknowledge that in respect of your use and access of the Website we shall not be liable to you in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for:

47.1 any damage or loss arising from the consequences of viruses received by you via the Website or of our failure to provide the Website in accordance with these Terms of Use;

47.2 any economic losses (including loss of profits) any indirect or consequential losses, loss of data, goodwill or reputation, or for any wasted expense including but limited to losses caused by viruses,

and any other liability we may have to you whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for any loss or damage suffered by you in relation to the Website (including any information contained on it) is limited to £500.

48. In any event we will not be liable for any failure to perform our obligations under these Terms of Use if we are prevented from doing so by an event beyond our reasonable control.

Your liability

49. You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any:

49.1 claims (including third party claims);

49.2 losses, demands, costs, expenses (including legal costs and expenses);

49.3 fines; and/or

49.4 any other liabilities whatsoever (including (without limitation)) any liability arising out of any action brought against us for misrepresentation or negligent misstatement

arising from any access to or use of the Website by you, or by any person who may be authorised by you or for whom you are responsible to the extent such use is in breach of these Terms of Use and/or unlawful, and save always to the extent that any such claims, losses, demands, costs, expenses, fines or other liabilities arise directly due to our negligence or default.

50. You acknowledge that this indemnity is appropriate and reasonable given the nature of the Website, and that you are accessing the Website at no additional charge to yourself.

Jurisdiction

51. The laws of England shall apply exclusively to these Terms of Use and to all matters relating to use of the Website including but not limited to access to and use of NICE guidance. Any cause of action arising under these Terms of Use or the use of the Website including but not limited to access to and use of NICE guidance shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Amending these terms of use

52. From time to time NICE may at its sole discretion amend these Terms of Use. Your continuing use of the Website constitutes your acceptance of and agreement to any changed terms and conditions. NICE will post details of any such changes on the Website in a timely manner.

Enforceability

53. If any provision of these Terms of Use is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck out and the remaining provisions shall be enforced.

Interpretation

54. Headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section.

No waiver

55. Our failure to act with respect to a breach of these Terms of Use by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches.

Entire Agreement

56. These Terms of Use set forth the entire understanding and agreement between you and the NICE with respect to your use of the Website and your relationship, from that use, with us.

Further information

If you would like to make any comment or complaint about the Website please email us.