Who are we
The NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS), commissioned by NHS England, own and operate this website . Unless we say otherwise, we use the terms “SPS”, “NHS SPS”, “we”, “our” and “us” on this Website to refer to the NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service throughout the terms and conditions.
Website terms
The Terms and Conditions apply to your use of the SPS website at www.sps.nhs.uk (the “Website”). The Terms and Conditions apply regardless of how you access the Website, including any technologies or devices by which SPS makes the Website available to you at work, at home or on the move. You must read these Terms and Conditions carefully and by accessing, browsing, using or registering with the Website, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to these Terms and Conditions in their entirety. If you do not agree to these Terms and Conditions in their entirety, please do not use this Website.
Accessibility and browsers
NHS SPS aims to make our site and the material provided on them accessible to as many people as possible. Whilst SPS endeavours to ensure that the Website is normally available 24 hours a day, it will not be liable for any reason if the Website is unavailable at any time or for any period. Access to the Website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair for any reason or for any other reasonable cause. We endeavour to ensure that our Website has been tested on all commonly used browsers and on a number of screen readers, but please note that you may see inconsistencies in the presentation of pages if you are using an older or deprecated version of a browser.
Registration
To access certain parts of the Website, SPS may require you to register and provide certain information about yourself. When you register, you agree to:
- provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the relevant registration form (‘Registration Data’)
- contact SPS using the ‘ask a question’ facility in the event that your Registration Data changes
Passwords
When you register on the Website, you will be allocated a username and asked to choose a password. These details must be used solely by you. Sharing your username or password with any other person or making it available to multiple users on a network is strictly prohibited.
Accordingly, you agree to:
- maintain the security of your username and password and be fully responsible for all use of the Website
- immediately notify SPS if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your username or password or any other breach of Website security
- ensure that you close your Website account at the end of each session
NHS SPS will not be liable to any person for any loss or damage which may arise as a result of any failure by you to protect your password or account.
Information about cookies and your visits to our sites
The NHS SPS website does not store or capture personal information. With your consent, we track anonymous page views and interactions. We also use required cookies to allow users to log in and hold accounts within the SPS website.
We use, with your consent, cookies which track analytical data. This data helps us to understand how the site is used and improve the site. This data includes page views, page interactions and paths through the site.
This system will record your email address and other information if volunteered to us by you when registering with the Website. This will be treated as proprietary and confidential. It may be used for internal review and to notify you about updates to this Website. By using our Websites, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.
Linking to the NHS SPS website
We welcome and encourage other websites to link to sps.nhs.uk. We reserve the right to move or change our Website URLs at any time. Rather than deep linking, we recommend linking to section homepages, which are less likely to move or change. However, we do not give permission to suggest that your website is associated, or endorsed by NHS SPS. Additionally, we do not give permission if you intend to charge your website’s users to click on a link to any page on our Website.
Linking from the NHS SPS website
NHS SPS links to websites that are managed by other government departments and agencies, service providers or other organisations. We are not responsible for the content or reliability of the websites we link to and do not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. We aim to replace broken links to other sites but cannot guarantee that these links will always work as we have no control over the availability of other sites.
Intellectual property
The names, images and logos identifying NHS SPS and the NHS are proprietary marks. The use of our name and/or logo elsewhere is not permitted.
Your use of the Website and its contents grants no rights to you in relation to our intellectual property rights, or that of third parties.
Copyright
The material on this site is subject to copyright protection of the NHS SPS unless otherwise indicated. Most Copyright protected material may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for research, private study or for internal circulation within an NHS organisation. NHS SPS do not accept responsibility for accuracy of documents that have been adapted from original SPS content.
Information on this website is intended for use by NHS healthcare professionals and is forbidden for commercial or marketing purposes.
Certain content, including commercially sensitive data and patent information is restricted to NHS staff only. Such material must not be copied, published, or transmitted in any way without the express permission of NHS SPS.
Third party copyright
The permission to reproduce protected material does not extend to the material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party or for any photographic images. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.
Content
The majority of the contents and documents of the website have been prepared by NHS SPS, and are intended for use by NHS healthcare professionals and must not be used for commercial or marketing purposes. Members of the public or professionals from outside the UK may need assistance to interpret the information and to translate it to their own situation. It is strongly recommended to seek relevant professional help in such cases.
Clinical content
Many documents and content relates solely to the clinical scenario described within the text. You are strongly advised to read the entire document, and in particular to take into account any limitations highlighted. Should you have any doubts about whether the scenario is relevant to a specific patient, or be unsure whether you understand the answer, it is again recommended that you seek professional assistance. The content of this website is believed to be an accurate reflection of the medical literature at the time of preparation. However, users should always consult the literature and take account of new developments because these may change an answer.
Medicines Planning
The aim of Prescribing Outlook is to inform decisions about managed entry of new medicines and medicines management more generally within the NHS. It is forbidden to use the data within these documents for commercial purposes or for any means of financial gain.
Patent expiry
Information on patent expiry contained within this website is produced from various data sources. The dates are believed to be reliable and every attempt is made to ensure that the information is current and accurate, but this is a complex area and it cannot be guaranteed that sources are always free of error. Because of this, it is advised that the dates are for guidance only. This information must not be published elsewhere without the express permission of NHS SPS.
Social media, bookmarking and digital engagement
NHS SPS may from time to time provide content via third party or owned social media and interactive services. This may include but is not limited to:
- Youtube – for sharing video content
- Twitter – for sharing news and participating in conversations with users
- Blogs– to share the opinions
- Discussion Forums – for participation in conversations with users
- Flickr – for sharing photographs
- RSS feeds – for sharing news
- Social bookmarking – to allow users to share our content more easily on popular social media platforms
NHS SPS is under no obligation to oversee, monitor or moderate any interactive services we provide from our site, and we expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of these interactive services by a user in contravention of these terms, whether the service is moderated or not. The use of any of our interactive services by a minor is subject to the consent of their parent or guardian. We advise parents who permit their children to use an interactive service that it is important that they communicate with their children about their safety online.
Prohibited uses
You may use our sites only for lawful purposes. You may not use our sites:
- in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation
- in any way that is unlawful, fraudulent or harmful to other users, or has any unlawful, fraudulent or harmful purpose or effect
- to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our terms
- to transmit, or produce the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam)
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.
You should ensure that you have appropriate protection against viruses and other security arrangement in place when using the internet.
Viruses, hacking and other offences
You must not misuse our Websites by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs, spyware or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful:
- you must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our sites, the server on which the sites are stored, or any server, computer or database connected to our sites
- you must not attack our sites via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack
By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We may report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co- operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our sites will cease immediately.
Disclaimer
The NHS SPS website and material relating to SPS 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.
If the need arises, we reserve the right to amend, delete, suspend or withdraw content that we provide without notice. NHS SPS will not be liable if, for any reason, articles on our site or on other sites or the SPS website itself are unavailable any time or any period.
We do not guarantee that the information provided on this Website will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that this Website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or represent the full functionality, accuracy, reliability of the materials. We will, however, make every reasonable effort make sure that this is the case.
In no event will NHS SPS be liable for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damages whatsoever of data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of the NHS SPS website. Nothing in these terms and conditions will operate to limit or exclude liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
Some content on this website has been written by third parties. Reasonable attempts have been made by the relevant SPS author(s) to ensure that the contents of third party documents are up to date and meet the standards expected of authors themselves.
The information on this website is believed to be an accurate reflection of the medical literature at the time of preparation. However, users should always consult the literature and take account of new developments because these may change an answer.
We may revise these terms and conditions without notice. Please check regularly. Continued use of the NHS SPS website after a change has been made is your acceptance of the change.
Governing law
These terms of use and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and constructed in accordance with the law of England and Wales.
Freedom of Information
The data rights and responsibilities of NHS SPS, its staff and of patients is governed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998.
Your feedback or concerns
If you have any feedback or concerns about material which appears on our site, please contact us.
Thank you for visiting our site.