Connecting with us on social media
Connecting with us on social media
How we use social media and our community guidelines to ensure a safe, supportive space for everyone.
How we use social media
At Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, we use our social media channels to share news, information and important updates about the Trust and its services. We also use it to share public health campaigns, blogs and personal experiences of accessing our services or working with us.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Community guidelines
We value being able to connect to our community online, and welcome respectful discussion and feedback. To keep our channels a safe and supportive place, we ask that you follow our community guidelines when interacting with us online.
Please do not post comments or send us messages that:
- contain personal, confidential or sensitive information about you or another person, including information about someone's health, treatment or care. Please do not post addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, NHS numbers or other information that could identify someone - remember that social media is a public space. If you need to discuss your own care or someone else's care, please contact the appropriate service privately rather than posting the information on social media
- incite hate or may be considered threatening, offensive or discriminatory
- are harassing or bullying
- identify individual members of staff in connection with a complaint, allegation or personal matter, or share personal information about a member of staff. To raise a concern about an individual member of staff, please contact the PALs and Complaints Team
- are repeatedly posted, duplicated, automated or otherwise constitute spam
- contain potentially defamatory allegations about an identifiable person
- deliberately impersonate another person or organisation, or contain fraudulent, deceptive or deliberately misleading content
- infringe or violate someone else's rights or the law
- advertise products or services
- are irrelevant or off topic or unrelated content in a way that disrupts discussion
- contain material that you do not have permission or the right to share, including copyrighted images, videos or other content
- contain graphic, distressing or unnecessarily detailed descriptions or images of injury, self-harm, suicide or violence
- identify a child or another person whose identity should be protected, or share information that could put someone at risk
We welcome different views, including criticism of the Trust and our services. We will not remove comments simply because they are negative or critical. However, we may hide or remove content that breaches these guidelines, to protect the privacy, safety and wellbeing of people using our channels.
We may update these guidelines at any time.
Responding on social media
We do read every comment, but due to the number we receive we are not always able to respond. We will always try to help if you ask a genuine question or enquiry. This may mean directing you to other departments or services.
Our accounts are monitored 9am to 5pm Monday to Sunday, not including bank holidays. We aim to respond within 2 working days.
Please note, we cannot provide medical advice, discuss individual patient cases or provide crisis support through social media.
Here are some places you can direct your query:
- for medical advice, please contact a healthcare professional involved in your care, your GP or NHS 111
- for mental health support, visit find help now
- to provide feedback or make a complaint about the Trust's services, please contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
Responding to complaints
You are welcome to tell us when something has gone wrong. However, we are not able to investigate a complaint through social media because we need to protect your confidentiality and may need further information. We will therefore usually ask you to contact PALS or our complaints team privately.
Safeguarding concerns
If something posted on our channels causes us to be concerned about someone's immediate safety or wellbeing, we may take appropriate action in line with our safeguarding responsibilities. This may include sharing information with relevant services where this is necessary to protect someone from serious harm.
Seen something that doesn't look right?
If you have any feedback about our social media channels or have seen something that you think doesn't look right, please let us know by emailing communications@covwarkpt.nhs.uk.
If you need urgent help
If you need urgent help for your mental health, contact NHS 111 and select the mental health option.
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.
Our social media accounts are not a clinical or crisis service and should not be used to seek urgent help. We cannot guarantee that a post, comment or direct message will be seen immediately.