Social media policy

 

How we use social media

To keep the public informed about our work, we engage with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Having a presence on these sites also allows us to gauge public opinion on a variety of subjects related to healthcare in Scotland.

Here’s a list of the kind of information we regularly communicate via social media sites:

  • Our work in providing evidence, improvement support and scrutiny to healthcare providers in Scotland.
  • The work carried out by the Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) to ensure your hospital is safe and clean.
  • New and updated guidelines from the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).
  • The findings of the Scottish Health Technologies Group.
  • The work of the Scottish Health Council, including patient experience and public involvement.
  • The advice issued by the Scottish Medicines Consortium on new cost-effective medicines for the NHS in Scotland.
  • Our inspection reports on independent healthcare facilities in Scotland.
  • Our inspection reports on the care of older people in acute hospitals.
  • Key information relating to our work from other organisations.

The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI), Scottish Health Council, Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG), Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) are all part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

What you can expect from us

 If you follow us on one of social media pages, you can expect approximately five updates per week, bringing you the latest information from our websites and our YouTube channel.

If you ‘follow’ or ‘like’ us on Twitter or Facebook, we will not automatically do the same with your page. Being ‘followed’ or ‘liked’ by Healthcare Improvement Scotland does not imply endorsement of any kind.

Communicating with you

We read all direct messages and Facebook wall posts to ensure that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people in Healthcare Improvement Scotland. We also keep track of your Twitter replies and respond if we feel it would be appropriate to do so.

We retain the right to remove any comments that we feel to be inappropriate for a public forum.

If your public message has implications for an individual’s personal identity (in line with data protection legislation) or if you publicly request information not routinely made available by us (via the Freedom of Information Act), then we will take such messages and requests offline and handle in a more appropriate manner.

For more information on Freedom of Information requests, visit this section of our website (link).

Availability

We will update and monitor our Facebook and Twitter accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday.

Facebook and Twitter may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Facebook/Twitter downtime.

Official communications

If your communication is of an official nature, please use our standard communication channels, rather than social media. Details are available from from our contact us page.