Social media moderation guidelines

The following guidelines relate to the Countess of Chester Hospital’s main and affiliated social media channels. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

The Trust’s social media channels are intended to be social sites. We want them to be safe spaces for helpful, open and insightful discussion.

Information shared on our channels should not be considered medical advice and it is not intended to replace consultation with a qualified health professional. Medical advice will not be communicated on these channels, either publicly or in private messages. Anyone who has an urgent medical query should instead direct this either to their GP or NHS 111.

Our Communications Team will do everything they can to help with any other enquiries.

All of our accounts are monitored from Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm, so any queries made outside of these times won’t receive an immediate response.

We reserve the right to hide or remove inappropriate content (where function allows) and also report/block users responsible for these posts.

Inappropriate content may include but is not limited to:

  • Abusive comments or posts containing inappropriate language or hate speech (based on colour, race, nationality, religion or sexual orientation)
  • Anything that violates the privacy of our staff, patients and their families
  • Anything that violates copyright
  • Inappropriate or graphic images
  • Spam: any off-topic, redundant or repeated comments
  • Naming individuals linked to clinical or legal enquiries

In submitting content to any of our social media accounts (via wall posts, tweets, comments, reviews etc) you understand that this information is available and may be used, if appropriate, in the Trust’s internal and external communications. If you do not wish to have your information published, please make this clear, do not post or ask for further information about this via private message on those pages or by emailing countess.communications@nhs.net.