These principles have been produced to help us all feel as comfortable, safe and confident as possible whenever we visit or interact on our social media pages.
We might need to make changes to these principles as things can change quickly in the online environment. If they’re important to you, please check back regularly.
We welcome your feedback on our posts and how we can use our accounts effectively.
Please don’t use our social media accounts for this purpose.
What we’ll do
Our communications team updates and monitors our main Trust accounts Monday to Friday, 9am to 4.30pm and schedules posts to appear outside of these hours. This includes:
Twitter – @TEWV Facebook – tewv.ft Instagram – tewvnhsft- We aim to respond to messages on the same day.
- We’ll read all mentions, @replies, posts and direct messages sent to us. We can’t always reply to every individual message we receive but we will get back to you, or pass your message on where appropriate.
- We may ask you to send a private message to us with your contact details, particularly when it’s not appropriate for us to respond on social media. This means the right person can follow up with you about your question or concern.
- We’re working on guidance for staff about personal use of social media and how we will support them with this.
We have a number of other Trust accounts that relate to more specific parts of our work. These are checked less regularly and response times will therefore be longer. This includes:
- TEWV research: Twitter – @TEWVresearch
- Arch Recovery College: Facebook – durhamrecoverycollege, Twitter – @archrecovery
- KPO/QIS: Twitter – @TEWVQIS
- Recruitment: Twitter – @TEWV_careers
- Staff library: Twitter – @TEWV_library
- Therapies: Twitter – @TEWVtherapies
What we won’t do
- We won’t discuss any individual’s care through social media.
- We don’t deal with complaints through social media. There’s a process to follow: View our complaints process
- We don’t answer clinical or medical questions, but we’ll do our best to signpost where to get information, advice or support as appropriate.
Taking action
If however, we believe a contribution goes against our principles we may hide or delete the comment, block the account that it’s come from and/or report it to the social media platform. In certain cases, we may send comments to the police or take legal action in the case of threatening, libellous or defamatory posts.
We will take action when a post:
- Contains hateful or discriminatory comments
- Contains swearing or other profane, defamatory, offensive or violent language
- Is abusive towards members of staff or the public
- Targets a member of staff. We do take complaints about our employees very seriously and if you have an issue or concern about an individual please follow our complaints process.
- Contains links to inappropriate material
- Discusses illegal activity
- Relates to confidential or personal information
- Contains irrelevant advertising
- Is mean-spirited or contributes with the intention of causing offence or hurt
We’ll always try to message users who we’ve taken any action against because of a post or comment and explain our reasons. If you want to discuss our decision please email tewv.enquiries@nhs.net
If you don’t agree with our social media principles then please don’t post or comment on our social media channels. If you have any question please get in touch by emailing tewv.enquiries@nhs.net
